


Archangelica

by nommunication



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Compliant, Character Death, M/M, Mild Gore, Sabriel Minibang 2013, scars & cuts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-23
Updated: 2013-11-23
Packaged: 2018-01-02 11:53:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 33,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1056456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nommunication/pseuds/nommunication
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the six months after Dick Roman’s explosion into a pile of black goo and Dean and Castiel’s disappearance, Sam has been leading a desperate (and so far unsuccessful) search for a way to bring them both back. What he really needs is help from someone with power and knowledge that he doesn’t have. With a big-ass ritual and a sprinkle of ~I do believe in archangels, I do, I do!~, he manages to bring Gabriel - and  by extension, the Norse god Loki - back to the land of the living. His chance to get his brother back may just lie in accessing a pagan side-door to purgatory - though of course, this is Sam Winchester we’re talking about here, and God forbid the universe make anything simple for him…</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Act I

**Author's Note:**

> This is part of the 2013 Sabriel mini-bang, and so it comes with art!  
> Many thanks to my artist, Mangacrack, and my betas, Flo & Martha 
> 
> See final 'chapter' for all art, musical recommendations, and proper acknowledgements

 

 

When it came to plans for bringing Dean and Castiel back from purgatory, Sam was scraping the bottom of the barrel. He’d managed to curb the immediate threat of the leviathans: killing their metaphorical head had caused the body to flounder, but for some of them that meant rules such as ‘keep a low profile’ and ‘don’t excessively kill humans’ no longer applied.

The only people he’d had to help him were Garth and Kevin Tran: Advanced Placement. Kevin was great on the research side, but he was trained to be an academic, not to hunt monsters. Granted he had been learning fast but it still wasn’t like having Dean at his back.

He wished he had Charlie to help. He even wished he had Frank, whom he is two-thirds convinced faked his own death and is hiding somewhere. Hell, Frank and Charlie are probably holed up together in a hide-from-the-leviathans-and-the-Winchesters bunker.

Those two had helped him though, really. When Sam was struggling to take out a nest of leviathan in Cambridge a bunch of college students had run in and boraxed the chompers – and really, how many college boys own borax detergents? So he’d asked how they’d known what to do and they pointed him to, of all places, the Ghost Facer’s website. _Someone_ had hacked the site to include prominent sections on Leviathan and Sam strongly suspects who that someone might have been.

Leviathans aside, though, he’d been putting all his efforts into trying to find a way to get his brother and Cas back. As soon as Garth and Kevin showed that they could handle they few remaining chompers without him he withdrew from hunting them completely, passing any info he heard onto the others and focussing solely on his rescue mission. Garth started to get worried about Sam’s ‘obsession’, started trying to have Emotional Talks with Sam as if that would dissuade him from his searching. Kevin showed concern too, but as Sam became less and less involved with both the hunts and their company the kid actually got pissed off instead.

“You and Dean dragged me into this world, you can’t just fucking abandon me! If I can’t get out of hunting why should you be able to just drop it all to chase the impossibility of getting your brother back?” Kevin had yelled at him last time Sam rang them about some Leviathan signs he spotted.

It was the last time he talked to either of them. He felt guilty for it, but the feeling still paled in comparison with his determination to bring back Dean and Cas.

So far, though, it had all been for nothing. All his research had done so far was convince him they were in Purgatory. He knew, of course, that Purgatory could be opened, but considering how well that method had gone last time he also knew it wasn’t worth the risk. He was going to have to find an alternative way to get them out. 

In the end, it was actually the reminder of the Ghost Facers – and of the tulpa they had helped to create back in Texas way too many years ago – that gave him the idea.

If a being could be brought into existence from nothing by a sigil and the power of belief, could that same sigil be used to merely, say, bring two people who already exist back from purgatory?

He dismissed the thought soon enough – it had taken thousands to conjure the tulpa and he was just one man. It was a ridiculous notion.

It stuck with him though. It lay in the back of his head and got processed and adapted and grew into something still crazy, but with the smallest grains of feasibility that let him hope it would work.

 He can’t bring Dean and Cas back, but maybe, just maybe, he could bring back someone who could help. It would have to be someone powerful, but actually on their side, and there was only one person who was close to fitting the bill: Gabriel.

His reasoning goes like this: only a few people know that Gabriel is dead. Admittedly that’s because few people believe he existed in the first place, but if you consider the number of people who seem to take the Bible literally, in a population of seven billion there has to be a few thousand who believe Archangel is alive and kicking. If he could channel that belief, it might be enough to restore Gabriel. Then Gabriel could help him bring his brother back.

 It would take a lot of belief though. A single tulpa sigil had been able to collect and magnify the thoughts that were already directed at the house, enough to conjure the ‘ghost’. With belief in Gabriel so scattered he’d need more. In the end he took inspiration from the solar plants in the desert, where hundreds of mirrors redirect the sun’s rays to one central construction that collects the power.

It takes three days to drive to Elysian Fields Hotel, including the stops for research and supplies and sleep. It’s been over two years since the night Gabriel died but the hotel has decayed like it’s been left longer. Sam has to climb over wreckage as much as he walks, retracing the route to the grand ballroom. The bodies of the gods have gone, removed or crumbled into the dust that coats the surface. Sam’s probably inhaling pagan corpses.

The edges of the ballroom, the far end, have started to collapse but the centre looks mostly the same in the gloom. Sam half expected to see a body, but there’s none here either - except for the scorched wing marks emblazoned across the floor.

They’re huge, spread across the carpet and up over a table on the left side. The shape hasn’t been marred at all, still stands out starkly from the dust – or maybe they’re ashes. He thinks he can even make out the outline of where Gabriel’s body would have lain, a faded caricature of a crime-scene line-art where the ashes settled differently. The wings break this line, though, go right into where they would have joined Gabriel’s shoulder blades.

Sam wonders where the body went - whether it turned to dust or if somebody removed it. Kali, maybe, might have gone back after they parted ways. It could even have been Lucifer; the two were brothers after all even if one did kill the other.

He’s spent time too wondering where angels go once they die or if they go anywhere at all. They aren’t human souls, so they wouldn’t go to heaven or hell. If they did go to heaven, then surely they hadn’t really died and could come back, so that wouldn’t be it. Purgatory sounds like a dumping ground for everything dead but not human, but would God really send his angels to the same place as monsters? Then again when they first met Gabriel they hunted him as a monster. Maybe even if he wasn’t meant to, he’d become enough of a monster to go to Purgatory, and if he went to purgatory he might know about Dean or Cas or how to help them – but Sam’s letting himself hope for ridiculous things, getting ahead of himself. For all he knows angels just _go_ or revert to energy or something. Wherever he’s gone, Sam is bringing him back.

He starts the preparations. He makes his way around the room, covering the walls in paint. Some of it is Gabriel’s name in enochian, some of it is Loki’s name written in runes, but mostly it’s the tulpa symbol, over and over and over, a hundred magnifying glasses centring thoughts from all over the world on here. There’s no manual for this so he’s working on improvisation and extrapolated data. Sometimes he creates the symbols out of Gabriel’s names, sometimes write he cross-translates them as best he can, Loki in Enochian and Gabriel in Old Norse, because he doesn’t want just the archangel the church has painted Gabriel to be, he needs the former trickster.

He works through the night and into the cold light of the morning. The walls and surfaces are all drawn on, and he even very tentatively draws the tulpa sigil on each of Gabriel’s burned out wings; writes his names and a slew of Enochian and Old Norse across where his body would – will – be. He doesn’t want his footprints to ruin the wings so he finds a long stem of wood in the wreckage of the hotel and uses it to reach in and scratch out markings into the dust.

When he’s satisfied with his work, he stops and waits. It’s freezing in this abandoned hotel at the end of November but at least he’s sheltered from the wind. He’s waiting for it to turn late morning, for churches across America to hold service for the first Sunday of advent. They will start retelling that tale, the one which starts with the Archangel Gabriel telling Mary that she’s pregnant (and it makes him smile to think of how his Gabriel, the trickster he knows, would break the news). If there’s any day when people will be focusing on literal belief in Gabriel, it’s today.

At 11 Sam sits by Gabriel’s outline, one last tulpa symbol between them that sits between the ashes of wing and leg, and points from Sam towards where the heart or soul or grace would sit. Sam closes his eyes, and believes.

Across America – across the world, people believe in the archangel Gabriel and Sam believes that that power and his work will bring back the Gabriel he needs. He plans to sit here until midday at least, just focusing on bringing him back. He’s tired, though, and his mind keeps slipping from the conviction of success to memories of Gabriel: showing up at the hotel; Gabriel in the circle of holy fire; as Doctor Sexy; being begged to bring back Dean; eating pancakes at the diner; as the janitor telling Sam about the professor’s misdeeds before they had suspected him of being supernatural; his last words on the Casa Erotica DVD.

He thinks he might be falling asleep because his mind is starting to fabricate memories of Gabriel he didn’t see – him bargaining with Dean in the auditorium and waiting to see if they’d come to the diner that day and cold wet forests and pagan altars and an eight-legged horse and woman, barely more than a girl, cowering in fear in a sun-baked mud room. The memories are flooding through him, he’s falling under the rush of it and then there’s Kali, kissing Kali and reaching for the blood and Lucifer and _I know where your heart truly lies_ and the light and Sam coating the room and knowing that it has to work and a body in front of him where there wasn’t one before, waking and looking bewildered and seeing Sam crumpled on the floor, except Sam must be hallucinating because his eyes are tightly shut and he’s whimpering under the weight of the sigils and then –

There’s a hand on his shoulder.

“What the hell of a mess did you get yourself into this time, Sam?”

And he knows that voice. It’s Gabriel’s voice. It’s _Gabriel’s voice_. Still trembling, he looks up – and he’s there, actually there and it actually worked.

The rush of power is fading now and Sam pushes himself upright. Gabriel is still holding his shoulder.

“Are you okay?” he asks Sam.

“I’m meant to be the one asking you that,” Sam protests, with a shaky laugh of relief.

“Hey, I’m more than okay – considering last time I checked I was supposed to be dead, I’m fantastic! Whereas you have clearly messed with some serious mojo to get me here – not that I’m complaining - seriously, what is all this?”

Sam’s eyes follow Gabriel’s gesture to the walls, his decorations.

“I, uh.” He tries to arrange his explanation. “It’s a Tibetan symbol to concentrate and focus thoughts. Lore says it created an apparition for some monks, then a few years back the symbol and a webpage brought a ghost – a tulpa, really – into existence. So I – extrapolated, concentrated all the belief that you are alive to make you actually alive again.”

Gabriel is silent for a moment after Sam finishes, processing, then says slowly

“So you brought me back from the dead…like _Tinkerbell_?”

“Huh. Kind of?”

“Well, Peter Pan, let’s get back to Neverland – not the Michael Jackson one, mind you, just any hotel that I didn’t get stabbed in will do. This place is giving me the heebies with a side order of jeebies.”

Gabriel stands up but Sam’s eye is caught by another movement: the burnt wings formerly on the floor move with Gabriel, attached to his shoulder blades. Even as Sam watches they become less ashen and more feather-like – although they still look burnt and damaged – and start to fade from view. The sigils carved into each wing let the light shine through.

“You gonna sit there all day?”

Sam snaps his attention back and stands up. In his peripheral vision he thinks he sees a few shadowy feathers falling out.

“Come on. You can tell me what I’ve missed while we’re on the road – though I need to get me some candy first or I’ll pass out like a diabetic.”

Sam leads Gabriel through the ruined hotel to where he parked outside.

“No Impala?”

Sam shakes his head. “I’ll explain in the story. You okay getting in?”

Gabriel eyes the height of the pickup door in front of him. “I may be newly resurrected and not back to full whammy but I think I can handle getting in a truck.” He pointedly heaves open the door and climbs up. “Though of course you had to go for something moose-sized, didn’t you?” he adds after he’s seated.

 “I haven’t exactly had many passengers.”

They don’t speak for the rest of the forty-minute journey to a gas station, back where the highway meets the interstate. Gabriel’s silence is unusual so Sam keeps glancing over to check he’s okay. The archangel stares out his window but it doesn’t seem like he’s focusing on anything. Sometimes in the glare of a street light Sam thinks he catches a glimpse of the ragged shadow of a wing against the car’s interior and worries again that he fucked Gabriel up in the process of bringing him back.

At the sight of candy wrappers through the windows of the gas station Gabriel suddenly perks up again. He hastily fumbles with the handle of the door, opening it and sliding out when Sam’s barely stopped the truck. By the time Sam has topped up the tank and come back to look for him Gabriel has filled his arms with snacks, which he deposits in a pile in front of the cashier before looking up at Sam expectantly. He looks back at Gabriel, about to comment on why he apparently expects Sam will par for all this but Gabriel’s more interested on contorting to scratch an awkward spot on his back and it was a stupid question anyway. He can make out the flutter of shadow under the fluorescent lights, which is probably the wings again, and thinks they should probably get out of here before people start noticing anything’s up. He pulls out his credit card (that is to say, Norman Brunswick’s credit card) and pays.

Once they’re back on the freeway heading east and Gabriel’s finished two bars of chocolate and a bag of skittles, Sam tells Gabriel what he’s missed. He tries to keep it brief, stick to the broad picture, although Gabriel butts in and asks questions which slow things down. He goes back over everything - from  following the advice Gabriel left them on the DVD, getting the rings, how he said yes to Lucifer so he could throw them both in the cage (he would have liked to have skipped over the part where he almost failed completely but Gabriel pressed for details). Then how he was brought back, at the time not knowing who by, how he and Dean helped hunt Alphas and he was soulless but Dean got it back with Death’s help and Death’s wall. How it transpired that Castiel and Crowley were working together to open purgatory to get the souls and use them.

“Holy crap, Cas,” Gabriel murmurs.

Sam rushes through Castiel succeeding but how it almost killed him, and how they reopened purgatory to return the souls but the leviathan clung on. He wants to ask Gabriel if he saw any of what happened, if he’d been in purgatory to witness it, but he gets urged on with his own story. He tells Gabriel about the leviathan’s plan to sneak to the top of the food chain through Dick (Gabriel snorts); how Bobby’s dying message had led them to the release of the tablet so they could steal it. How Kevin Tran: Advanced Placement (Gabriel hmm’d like he recognised the name) had translated it and told them how to bring down Dick – except that whatever happened to him had also sent Dean and Cas AWOL. How Sam’s been trying to get them back, fuelled by nothing but a gut feeling that they weren’t actually dead until he managed to secure the information that said they might be in Purgatory.

The final part of Sam’s story – so far – is the futile search for a way to rescue his brother and how he eventually formulated the plan to bring back Gabriel, who then might be able to help him.

“And – well – it worked,” he finishes lamely.

Gabriel finishes the last of a bag of popcorn before responding.

“So you brought me back as a tool to get your brother back?” Gabriel pouts. “And here I thought you’d missed my delightful company.”

“Compared to some of your brothers’, I think I actually did miss it,” Sam concedes.

“Still, you’re asking the guy who repeatedly and creatively killed your brother,” Gabriel glances over as if to check Sam isn’t about to send him back for that reminder, “you’re asking him to bring your brother back? You sure I’m really the right person for the job?”

“You brought him back for good, in the end,” Sam says quietly, “and you don’t have to help, I won’t force you to.”

Gabriel doesn’t answer, just wriggles a bit and tugs at the back of his shirt.

“Your turn,” Sam instead prompts, curiously.

“What is there to say? Luci stabbed me, I got sent I’m-not-even-fucking-sure-where, lay low until you busted me out and now I’m here.”

“Gabriel,” Sam says, unimpressed.

“What more do you want to know?” he asks, as if he has just given a full and detailed account.

“Well, what is meant to happen to angels when they die? Is that what happened to you? Were you in,” Sam hesitates, “Purgatory?”

Gabriel stops rubbing at his shoulder and gives him a look Sam can’t interpret.

“Purgatory is no place for angels, Sam,” he says, but it isn’t a _no, I wasn’t there_ \- it’s something more complex than that, and something more pained. Sam thinks maybe Gabriel isn’t ready to relive whatever happened to him.

“If you don’t want to tell me everything about what happened to you yet that’s fine, but I would like to know sometime,” he tells Gabriel.

“I think I’ll take you up on that. My story time can wait.”

There’s an awkward silence where neither of them knows how to start a new conversation. Gabriel eventually breaks it. “When are we stopping? I’m pooped – resurrection really takes it out of you.”

“There’s a motel in another twenty miles, I think.”

“Okay.” Gabriel curls up on his seat, hunched back towards Sam. It looks like he’s asleep but Sam’s not sure.

Even when the harsh fluorescent lights shine through the window, Gabriel’s face is raggedly shadowed by things Sam can’t see.

Gabriel doesn’t stir when they pull into the drive-by motel, and hasn’t moved by the time Sam’s got a room key and returned to the pickup. He doesn’t know if he’s asleep or passed out, but either way Sam doesn’t want to wake him, which leaves carrying the archangel to the motel room. He gets an arm under Gabriel’s bent knees okay, but when he gets as far as wrapping his other arm under Gabriel’s and around his back the angel hisses in pain and flinches away from the touch.

“Shit! Sorry. Gabriel, we’re here.” Sam backs away, embarrassed to have been caught. Gabriel stretches groggily and groans to warm up his vocal chords.

“Were you about to bridal carry me over the threshold? You never even asked for my hand!”

“Well, if you’re awake enough to be a smartass you can walk yourself to the motel room, then.” Sam leaves the passenger door open for Gabriel and heads round the back of the pickup to get out his duffel bag. When Gabriel has climbed down, Sam leads the way to their room.

They don’t speak much more once they’re in the room. Gabriel collapses melodramatically onto  the nearest of the two beds, winds himself around the blankets so they’re over his legs and under his cheek, clenches the blankets tight and falls still, apart from the occasional flex of spine or shoulders. Sam gets ready for bed and lies down, but he watches over Gabriel in the other bed – or at least what he can see over the duvet. He remembers when Cas was powered down and conked out for hours recuperating and wonders if it’s the same for Gabriel now. He hopes so, because he still has the nagging fear that he broke Gabriel while bringing him back, hurt or damaged him.

Sam doesn’t know when he falls asleep, but he knows he must have because now he’s waking up, his ears registering an odd noise in the room that gets his body automatically shifting into attack mode. He listens, the noise a muffled frenzied scrabble and quiet, broken whimpers – pain through gritted teeth. It doesn’t take long for him to realise it’s Gabriel making the noise.

 He’s out of his bed in an instant, stepping over the blanket half-thrown to the floor and crouching at the side of Gabriel’s bed.

The archangel’s eyes are screwed shut, his body contorted to allow his hands under his shirt to scratch frantically at his back. Panicked, Sam grabs at one arm and pulls it away; a sob breaks through Gabriel. Sam clasps the fighting hand and reaches his spare arm out to flick on the lamp between their beds.  The brightness makes him blink, chases shadows to his behind Gabriel where he reaches desperately with his free hand to keep itching. Sam had felt that Gabriel’s fingers were damp and sure enough he can see now the scarlet painting his fingertips and under the nails.

“Gabriel, stop,” he says desperately, uselessly. He wrestles the other hand out of Gabriel’s control, a little glad for the first time that he isn’t back to full strength. Tears start to track down Gabriel’s face as he writhes against Sam’s hold.

“Gabriel, listen to me. You have to tell me what’s wrong. You’re scratching yourself raw; I won’t let you do that. Tell me how I can help.”

Gabriel forces his words out.

“Not much you can do, Sasquatch. Just some – fuck – teething problems.”

Sam isn’t having any of it.

“Take off your shirt, Gabriel.”

“Not really – gah – the time to be coming on to me.”

Sam rolls his eyes and releases Gabriel’s hands so he can get the shirt undone, then pulls it down the sleeves and knots it to at least slightly hinder Gabriel’s hands. At this point all he’s focused on is being able to check Gabriel’s back, see what damage he’s caused. He climbs onto the bed, twists Gabriel to lie full on his front and sits across his thighs to pin him down. He presses Gabriel’s bound hands into the small of his back with his left hand and inspects the damage with his right.

The damage isn’t just fresh. Under the raised red lines and skin torn by Gabriel’s nail’s there’s still healing scars, jagged runes carved into the skin, densely packed, stretching over his shoulders blades and then scattering over his back. Beneath that are older scars still, neat lines of Enochian etched over the ribs. The scratching is worst around the shoulder blades, skin raw and oozing blood.

“Gabriel, what is all this?” Sam asks shakily. He watched the aching stretch of skin as Gabriel draws breath and rethinks his questions.

“Wait – first – is there any way to stop you from scratching? To stop the pain?”

Gabriel considers for a moment. “Juniper for the itching, willow for the pain. Hvönn would heal it but I doubt you have any of these anyway. There are healing runes but they may do more damage than good…” he trails off, the effort of speaking already too much.

“I’ll go see what I have in the truck,” says Sam, carefully climbing off Gabriel. First, though, he rummages in his duffle, pulls out a pair of thick socks and returns to Gabriel. The trickster has rolled onto his side, facing Sam and trying to wriggle out of the shirt.

“No. I am not letting you make it worse with more scratching,” Sam tells him, then reaches over to put a sock on each of Gabriel’s hands and retie the shirt.

“What –“ Gabriel starts but Sam’s already turning to go.

“I’m not a five-year-old with chicken pox!” he complains as Sam walks out the door.

Sam digs through the back of the pickup. He does not have any willow, juniper or hvönn (whatever that is). He does have aspirin, antiseptic spray and bug-bite-anti-itch stuff, and he figures that will have to do.

He carries a second bag back to the room. Gabriel is rubbing the bundle of hands and clothes up and down his back, trying to replace the scratching with chafing. Luckily he can’t reach high enough to rub the worst areas. There’s a small, desperate whimper every time he stretches futilely to try and reach higher.

“Oh for goodness –“Sam takes the bag straight to the bed, dumps it by Gabriel’s knees and pins his hands back down. “I told you _not_ to scratch, Gabriel,” he says, pulling the hands back sharply to emphasize his point.

“Quit getting kinky with me, Winchester, try asking later,” Gabriel mumbles into the pillow. Sam carefully manoeuvres Gabriel upright – Gabriel doesn’t bother to resist – pops out two aspirin, then another two, and holds them out to Gabriel. He looks bad. Blood is smeared everywhere, tear tracks have streaked his cheeks, his face looks pinched and his jaw is clenched. He makes no move to take the aspirin.

“Hey, open up,” Sam cajoles, gently touching Gabriel’s jawline. After a moment, it drops.

Sam tips the pills in, grabs a bottle of water from the bag and pours some of that in too.

“Come on, swallow.” He prompts, pushing Gabriel’s chin to close his mouth. He swallows and raises his eyebrows suggestively at Sam’s instruction. Sam rolls his eyes, but the constant innuendo and joking is reassuring. It tells him the trickster he knows is still there, in this beaten, breaking vessel. “I have some stuff for your back. It’ll be easiest if you lie on your front again.”

Gabriel’s already distracted by trying to itch his back against the wall (that will be fun explaining to the cleaner), so Sam has to manhandle him back down and sit on him, this time at the base of his spine so he has better reach. It rests Gabriel’s hands awkwardly near his crotch but Sam doesn’t care, he has bigger concerns right now.

He starts with the anti-itch cream, squeezes it onto two fingertips and gingerly applies it. It’s okay on the less damaged regions, but when he reaches the raw parts Gabriel grunts and wriggles in protest. Sam does what he can, then grabs the antiseptic, glad someone invented a spray-on version.

It doesn’t help completely; Gabriel hisses in his next breath as Sam applies it. When he’s done he asks, “How does it feel?”

“I think it’s helped – on this plane at least. The problem is rooted deeper than my skin though, Sam.” His voice still sounds pained, but it isn’t quite so desperate anymore.

“Will you scratch if I untie you?” Sam asks.

“I’ll try not to.”

Sam undoes the knot of the shirt and removes the socks. Gabriel wiggles his fingers, aborts the instinctive movement to itch.

“You’re heavy, you know,” he says and Sam takes the hint to get off the angel’s back, perching on the edge of the bed instead.

“Sorry,” he apologises. Then, “Are you going to explain what’s going on, then?”

“Well, basically I – the symbols are there to – and then –“Gabriel struggles to get any words out, eventually sighs and gives up. “I don’t think I can talk about it yet, Sam.”

Sam nods tries not to show his disappointment. He hopes that, given time, Gabriel will be able to share, sooner rather than later if it would help Sam heal him now. But he understands not being able to talk, saw it with Dean after hell and has felt it himself often enough. So he lets it slide for now.

“Try and get some rest, at least,” he suggests, moving back over to his own bed, “and don’t think I won’t come back and pin you down again if I catch you scratching.”

“Is that meant to be a threat or an incentive?” Gabriel asks.

“Shut up.”

Gabriel makes it through the night. Sam gets a fraction more sleep.

In the morning he finds the nail clippers and cuts Gabriel’s fingernails right back. He looks for a new shirt to replace the bloody one. Dean’s clothes would probably fit a little better but Sam doesn’t want to go through the bags of Dean’s things, so instead he finds one of his own shirts that shrunk in the dryer but he hadn’t got round to replacing yet. It still swamps Gabriel.

They end up buying more clothes in a Target when they stop for food because Sam notices blood starting to seep through the shirt.

They drive on after that because Sam doesn’t know how not to.

In the next motel, Sam inspects Gabriel’s back. The redness is mostly gone; the cuts from Gabriel’s scratching have scabbed over. The runes, though, are still cracking, reopening. Sam repeats the ritual of medication but knows it doesn’t do much good – only helps the surface.

The shadows stay tucked closely to Gabriel’s back, except when Sam has to inspect there or apply meds.

It’s only mid-afternoon when they stop at this motel and Sam plans to do research for the rest of the day. Gabriel amuses himself with the television while Sam sits at the table with his laptop. He starts by looking up the things Gabriel had mentioned could help heal him last night.

He looks up willow and juniper, of which he knows a little already, but digging a bit deeper tells him they were traditional Norse medicinal remedies. It’s interesting to him that the archangel chose pagan healing herbs, but then he did spend goodness knows how long as Loki. He tries to remember what the third thing Gabriel listed was, but the word was unfamiliar.

“Hey, what were the things you told me to get again? Willow, juniper and…”

“Hvönn.”

“What exactly is that? What does it do?”

“Healing herb. Can’t you Google the details? Dr. Piccolo is about to confront Dr. Sexy.”

“Fine. Can you spell it for me?”

“Uh, I can spell it in Norse runes?”

“Funnily enough I don’t have a runic keyboard installed on this laptop.”

Gabriel shrugs in a ‘can’t help you _there_ then, kiddo‘ way that Sam remembers from back before the whole leviathan mess. Since he doesn’t know the Romanised spelling he spends some time making phonetic guesses and using related searches. Gabriel’s gone back to the TV but Sam can see him fidgeting.

When he finds what he’s looking for, he gets a surprise that convinces him this is definitely what he needs to heal Gabriel.

“Is this it?” he asks, twisting the laptop towards Gabriel to show him a picture if a plant, reedy stems stretching up into bunches of tiny green-white flowers. Gabriel nods. “And you have no knowledge of what it’s called apart from hvönn?”

“No. Why?”

Sam scrolls down so that Gabriel can read the caption.

“Check out the Latin name.”

It’s _Angelica Archangelica._

It also only grows in Northern Europe, but Sam thinks that somebody must import it to the states. Some more research, an episode of House M.D. for Gabriel, and a couple of phone calls later, he’s found a Wiccan supply store about a day and a half’s drive away that stocks the stuff (and juniper and willow, too, just in case).

It had looked like Gabriel was getting stronger, then night falls for good and he lapses.

He’s not sure exactly why, and Gabriel’s too torn between pain and insatiable itching to tell him, but Sam knows more than enough things that are more powerful at night to be completely surprised by it. All he can do is apply more meds, glad he restocked along with the shirts. Gabriel accepts the weight of Sam sitting astride him without innuendo this time. When Sam’s done the angel just stays laid out on his front and goes to sleep, or something like it.

Worry bubbles up in Sam. Worry that Gabriel won’t heal, worry that Dean and Cas are still out facing God knows what, worry because he’s putting the search on hold to look after Gabriel (though he admits he wouldn’t change that decision). He wants to pray to Castiel, like he used to before he got tired and ashamed of only being able to report failed attempts to rescue them. But he won’t, not yet. Not until Gabriel is better, at least.

Maybe he could help Gabriel the same way he brought him back.

True, he’s still got the niggling concern that it’s the reason Gabriel is hurt like this, but then the runes and scars over his back aren’t like the patterns are like the ones Sam drew into the dust of Elysian fields, so he thinks it may be something else. Either way, it’s at least worth a try, isn’t it?

Sam clears the room’s small table, finds a marker and draws the tulpa symbol on its Formica surface that’s aimed toward Gabriel. Then he sits at the table and meditates, concentrates, tries to believe that Gabriel is recovering, that the things they get tomorrow will help him. Somewhere in the twists of desperation the meditation becomes a prayer - to Gabriel or for Gabriel or something in between.

There’s a gasp from the bed, causing Sam to look up as he prays.

The air above Gabriel is thickening, coalescing as the shadows of his wings gain depth. They’re huge and ethereal, colour dull but shifting and undefinable. They’re damaged, too: Sam can see now the patches missing feathers, the ones stained black, there’s a slight glow leaking out in the shapes of the tulpa sigils Sam drew in the ashes and it should look beautiful, that light, but instead it looks like an oozing wound...And he can’t focus on them, but he can see the tracings of runes creeping up from Gabriel’s shoulder blades and trying to force the wings down.

His prayer has reduced to ‘oh god oh my god’ for a moment, then he tries to continue praying for recovery.

“Sam, stop it!” cries Gabriel, and in surprise, he does. The wings start to lose depth, retreat back into shadows. Gabriel is panting.

Sam hurries over to where Gabriel’s lying. The runes around his shoulder blades have cracked again and even the ones scattered down his arms have raised up, reddened. He’s shaking.

“Shh, shit, I’m sorry, I didn’t know that would happen,” says Sam.

“S’okay,” Gabriel slurs “Jus’ quit thinkin’ and lemme sleep.”

The archangel curls into a ball on his side, careful not to rub his back against anything, and closes his eyes again. He looks so rough, and Sam isn’t sure where it comes from but he reaches down and gently pushes the stray strands of hair back off Gabriel’s forehead. He catches the small smile that forms on Gabriel’s mouth and then pads away from the bed to let him sleep.

In the morning they leave early and Sam drives fast. They roll into their destination town in the early hours of the morning. Sam does his best to move Gabriel from the curled up foetal position in the truck to laid out on the motel bed without hurting him. He doesn’t really succeed, but he treats Gabe’s back and focuses on how tomorrow he’ll have something that will actually work.

He collects the angelica and other ingredients before it even hits 10am the next day. The willow only comes in twigs and chips so he drives an hour out of town to a lumber place which sells him willow bark in sheets. Finally on the way past a Wal-Mart they stop to pick supplies (i.e. sweets for Gabriel) and he buys more bandages, plus a pestle and mortar from the cooking section.

They’re further north now and night falls that little bit earlier.

Gabriel curls up on the bed and grits his teeth, shadows twitching and jerking, while Sam prepares the ointment. The angelica has been dried, so Sam crushes it to a rough power in the mortar and then adds a little holy oil to make it somewhere between liquid and paste. The choice of the oil is arbitrary, really, just a notion that it might help, as well as the lack of other liquids to add. Gabriel’s still scratching when he forgets that he shouldn’t, so Sam adds some juniper for good measure, and then some more oil to make up for that too being dried – but it’s still mostly angelica in there.

When he’s done he quickly washes his hands and then takes everything over to the bed – they could only get the one this time – and Gabriel rolls onto his front and Sam settles across his coccyx like he’s worn a groove there. Gabriel scrapped his shirt as soon as they were inside so Sam can immediately see the sore, shining runes that have reopened yet again.

With no real idea of what he’s doing, he dips two fingers in the mixture and starts to spread it across Gabriel’s shoulders. He works patiently, painting across the scars with sweeps and circles drawn in angelica, the purplish stain of juniper replacing the blood. As he works Gabriel murmurs in a language he doesn’t know but he suspects is Norse. Sam draws a tulpa sigil down Gabriel’s spine with the ointment and prays for his healing, wills it to work.

When he runs out of the mixture, he sprays some more antiseptic over it – lightly, but he can’t quite shake his trust in modern medicine. Then he takes the willow bark (sprays that too) and lays it over Gabriel’s back. Finally he ties it all down with bandages. This requires him getting off Gabriel and Gabe shifting up onto his knees – accompanied by complaint about the bindings or an innuendo – so Sam can wrap the bandages around Gabriel’s torso.

“How does it feel?” Sam asks once he’s done.

“Tingly,” says Gabriel, after a pause, “and still kind of painful – but maybe less so?”

Sam decides to take this as a good sign. He relegates Gabriel to the left side of the bed so he can sleep on the right – doesn’t really think about it because he’s had to split a bed with Dean enough times. Gabriel tries to curl up in vain before announcing that he feels like he’s in a corset and lies on his front instead. Sam lies on his side, facing the angel so he can keep an eye on him but still with a good foot or two between them.

When he wakes up Gabriel is curled up with his back to Sam, as much as the dressings allow. Sam’s arm is outstretched, fingers just touching between Gabriel’s shoulder blades. The angel looks like he’s sleeping more peacefully than he has since he got back.

 


	2. Act II

The point of resurrecting Gabriel had been so he could help Sam bring back Dean and Castiel. That mission, however, has fallen temporarily to the wayside. Sam fully intends to return to it as soon as possible, but just for now his priority is getting Gabriel healthy.

They leave the bandages on for twenty-four hours. In the meantime, Sam drives, supposedly nowhere but skirting closer to the next angelica stockist he’d found in case they need more. It may be overcautious though – if there was ever a sign of Gabriel recovering it’s when he triumphantly conjures himself a bar of Hershey’s. By the time they start looking for a motel there’s a small pile of conjured snack foods in Gabriel’s lap, and he vanished away the smoothies Sam had bought for good measure. The apples get turned into a pie.

That seems to be his limit though; he doesn’t manage anything more spectacular and he still looks tired by the end of the day. He looks tired - but actually happy, a kind of childlike glee on his face as he carries his armful of confectionary to the room.

 When Sam takes off the willow bark the runes, normally oozing by now, are all scabbed over and in some places starting to really heal up. Gabriel makes to lie down on his front but Sam stops him.

“Gabriel. I was wondering - could you tell me what these,” he gestures to the scars, “actually are? What happened to you after – after Lucifer?”

Gabriel looks at the floor, then closes his eyes and his brow creases in concentration or pain. He reaches up to itch his back like he isn’t really thinking about the action. He opens his mouth a few times but doesn’t come out with anything.

“Okay, you can’t or won’t talk about it, that’s fine,” says Sam, conscious that for all he knows Gabriel’s memories are horrific and that he wouldn’t want to make him relive that. With Dean, he always pressed for information because Dean is his brother and should tell him such things – but he thinks maybe Gabriel doesn’t trust him enough to open up yet.

“I won’t make you tell me,” he continues, “but I was thinking instead I could just research it myself, what all your scars mean. Try and work out what happened to you. Then you wouldn’t have to tell me anything, just confirm that I was right?”

“I feel like you’re turning me into one of your hunts.”

Sam winces. “Sorry – I didn’t mean it like that. I just want to understand – to make sure I didn’t damage you by bringing you back…” he trails off, feeling guilty again.

“Hey,” says Gabriel, his finger and thumb on Sam’s chin, forcing him to look up instead of at his shoes, “you brought me back, and don’t you fucking dare feel guilty about that, Sam. And if you want to research me…well it’s the least I can do to let you. So go ahead and research me. Research me _all night_ baby.”

Sam snorts and bats Gabriel’s hand away.

“Can you even go five sentences without making an innuendo?”

“I could, probably. But where’s the fun in that?”

Sam rolls his eyes.

“Okay, so I want to get more angelica on you as soon as we can, so I was thinking the quickest way to get a copy of your marks would be to take some photos?”

“If you wanted some pictures for the spank bank, Sam, you could have just asked.”

“Gabriel.”

“Oh, come on, you’re making it too easy for me!”

“Look, just, hold still while I take the pictures, okay?”

“Sure you don’t want me to strike a pose?”

“Just keep your arms by your sides until I tell you to move them.”

Sam snaps a series of pictures of the marks, hopes the camera will be good enough resolution to read the Enochian scars as well. While the densest concentration by far is on his back, particularly the shoulder blades, they spread over his skin, scattered across his arms and torso. Sam’s about to ask if they’re on his legs, too, but thinks better of it because Gabriel would no doubt make any suggestion dirty.

When he’s done photographing, Gabriel finally lies out on the bed and Sam mixes up more ointment and they settle into the usual ritual – and it’s only been a few days, when did this become usual for Sam? – applying healing herbs to Gabriel’s back. Sam gives him the excess to apply to his other scars, too. He lets himself believe that Gabriel is going to get stronger, that he’ll heal.

Sure enough, the next morning Gabriel transports himself as far as the vending machines and back. Sam should complain about risking being seen, but he’s too happy for that. Gabriel spends the morning disappearing in and out of the room while Sam gets to translating the symbols that cover Gabriel’s skin. The day Enochian and Old Norse are added to Google translate he will kiss his laptop, but until then he has to do with obscure, poorly formatted corners of the internet and the heavy textbooks he used to work out what to write in the ballroom of Elysian Fields. The translations he builds up are fragmented, but by enhancing the photos on his laptop and consulting both text and web he covers as much as he can.

There are some words that come up over and over again in both languages, and there seems to be difference in what they say on his back to his arms and torso. The front speaks of camouflage, disguise, words of power interwoven and the words for earth and sky and illusion. The back is harsher, stronger words of binding and concealment and suppression – first in delicate Enochian, but then carved over in runes again and again.

Sam starts to piece the picture together while he’s still translating. He’s gotten good at extrapolating incomplete data, gets enough practice on hunts when there’s gaps in the records or the eyewitness accounts or when they have to work out what ate someone from the remaining mangled limbs. He can figure out the backstory, picture what could have happened. Now he’s picturing Gabriel, the runaway, pulling himself so deep into ‘witness protection’ that he physically carves his skin with the magic to hide his Grace and be seen as a pagan god. The front, Sam thinks, is for his power – to disguise its divinity and make it appear like it’s drawn from the earth in the pagan fashion. His back isn’t trying to just disguise, though, it’s trying to completely hide his grace. _Why on the back?_ He thinks, and then gets it. Concentration on the shoulder blades – those shadows – _of course:_ Gabriel’s wings.

Speaking of, the last time Gabriel flew out was over an hour ago now. Sam sends a quick prayer to him: _Gabriel, are you okay?_ A few minutes later the angel walks in to the motel room soaking wet. Sam’s up in an instant.

“What happened to you?”

“Tried to zap back to that burger place we passed on the far side of town and ended up falling short into somebody’s swimming pool.”

The angelic power cut concerns Sam, it really does, but the mental image of Gabriel suddenly falling from nowhere into some poor person’s pool makes him chuckle.

“You must have given the owner quite the surprise.”

“The owners were out, but the gardener certainly got a shock. She looked like she didn’t know whether to call an ambulance or the police. I managed to snap out of there so she’ll probably have to call a psychiatrist instead about hallucinations.” Gabriel grins.

“So you were still able to back here, then?”

“I was about half a block short, but yeah. Turns out I gotta stretch the mojo muscle before it’s back to full whack.” Sam nods in agreement. “Do you not have enough power left to dry yourself off?” he presses.

“Oh I probably do, but then I couldn’t do this,” replies Gabriel, and before Sam can ask ‘do what?’ the five-foot-something archangel is hugging Sam, arms wrapped around his waist – and pool water soaking from his clothes into Sam’s.

“What are you, five?” Sam asks, with little real irritation; Gabriel being Gabriel is still missing often enough that he’s glad for its presence.

“Sure, give or take a few millennia,” says Gabriel, grinning up at Sam mischievously.

“Very funny, but you better be about to make us dry again or I’m revoking your candy privileges.”

“Shouldn’t you want me to be resting my powers after this pool debacle? If you want dry clothes, why don’t you strip out of the wet ones?” Gabriel suggests with a waggle of eyebrows.

“Bite me, Gabriel – no, _not_ literally.”

“Spoilsport,” Gabriel pouts, but he does snap them dry. Sam takes a minute to fuss over the bandages, check that Gabriel’s adventures haven’t shifted them. Gabriel makes some predictable comment about having to remove his shirt yet again for it – not that it even reveals much when most of his torso is wrapped up. Sam’s hands skim over the dressings, half-checking and half-remembering what’s written into the flesh underneath: _camouflage, illusion, concealment, binding_. His fingers trace over the runes on Gabriel’s bare arms, not really considering what he’s doing as he translates in his head.

The angel is very still under his touch.

Sam’s mind suddenly makes a connection. In so many spells and rituals, blood is required for them to work properly or powerfully. His hands drift over the bandaged stretch of Gabriel’s back, wondering if the open wounds, the fresh blood, had been why they were reacting so strongly against Gabriel’s grace…if that’s why they seemed to have been carved…

“Had a fun time researching, I take it?” Gabriel eventually says, snapping Sam out of his reverie.

“Uh – yeah – I mean, it was really interesting.”

Gabriel raises an eyebrow. “What did you find out?” he asks, and Sam tells him what he’s translated and figured out, the angel nodding along.

“But there’s something I haven’t worked out yet, I need to think it over some more…” Sam trails off.

“So think it out loud to me. Soliloquise. Let’s see how good at this guessing game you really are” Gabriel tells him, so Sam does.

“Well, this script is all to hide or disguise your grace – your ‘witness protection’, right? Enochian first, then runes over the top…had Enochian alone not been enough? And the Enochian looks like a brand, but the runes are more like cuts…is that a pagan thing? Did it require blood to work? And on the skin, not inside like Castiel carved our ribs. Though I guess that’s intricacies -?”

“Yep, no need to go into that fine a detail, Sam.”

“Okay. But still, these are from when you left heaven to hide among the pagans. So that should mean the scars are all old because you made them a long time ago.  On the front that fits, but on your back – they were all opening like they were much fresher. Yet the last time I saw you you were coming out of hiding, if anything. We made you admit you were an angel, Kali had figured it out… So why were the marks fresh?”

Gabriel snaps the chair to be behind his knees and sits down, then motions for Sam to continue.

“I guess it could have been where I brought you back, it reopened old wounds, tried to fight when your wings tried to manifest…or you re-carved them yourself for some reason. You needed to hide yourself again. If you were hiding maybe – but you’d died, hadn’t you? Or no, can archangels even really die? Where were you…?”

Gabriel doesn’t offer any help, but he’s tense where’s he’s sat now: nervous, anticipating. And then Sam remembers something Gabriel said before: _Purgatory is no place for angels._

“Wait – so you _were_ in Purgatory?”

Gabriel bows his head.

At first Sam thinks that surely being an angel in Purgatory would be an advantage, but then he remembers the leviathan that killed the angels protecting Kevin; goodness knows what else on top of the leviathan could be waiting in there.

“So you – you tried to hide that you were an angel? To make yourself hidden again in Purgatory…”

“Well, aren’t you a smart cookie, look what you can figure out all by yourself...” comments Gabriel, though there’s a tight edge to the condescending tone. It’s enough to convince Sam he’s right.

“Wow – I – wow. Uh, sorry?”

“Hey, you pulled me out of there.”

“Right. Yeah”

“So got any more bright ideas to bring to the table?”

“No, I think that’s about all I can work out from what your body tells me.”

“Oh, my body could tell you a _lot_ of things, Sam.”

“Quit interrupting to make innuendo,” Sam protests half-heartedly. “What I’m trying to say is I’ve figured out as much as I can on my own, anything else – like exactly what happened to you in Purgatory, what Purgatory is even like, you’d have to tell me yourself.” He looks at Gabriel pointedly.

Gabriel avoids his gaze.

“Look, Gabriel, I’m sorry that I keep asking you when you don’t want to talk about it, but I have to know. If that’s where Dean and Cas are I need all the information I can get so I can find a way to get them out, too.”

“What do you know about Purgatory already?”

“That it’s where monsters go when they die; all of them in one place though, I suppose it’s vast like Heaven and Hell. I think the leviathan were banished to there instead of being killed? I know how to open it if you want to open a free-for-all escape, but not how to get one man and an angel out. And as for what it’s like, well, I can’t imagine it’s a fun place but otherwise…”

“You’re on track so far.”

“Could you maybe fill in some of the details?”

Gabriel sighs, his posture curling in on itself.

“Look, Sam, you’re right…you can’t imagine what it’s like down there.”

“Couldn’t you show me somehow, then? Put the images in my brain?” Sam presses, but Gabriel shakes his head.

“Really not a good idea.”

Sam does his best to not look disappointed. He probably doesn’t do very well.

“Do you at least know anything about Dean and Cas? Any way of getting them out?”

“Sorry kiddo, I got nada.”

Sam doesn’t even try to hide his disappointment this time. He’d always known deep down it was a long shot, but he’d still hoped Gabriel would know something.

 

 

They order in Chinese for dinner. Gabriel offers to snap them up something but Sam argues that he is yet to see Gabriel produce anything that could be said to have a vitamin and mineral content. Some British holiday film called ‘Love Actually’ is on and Sam is persuaded into watching it, he’s not sure how. Gabriel abuses his returning powers to make all the cast sport extravagant moustaches, women and children included. Sam has to admit it makes everything more comical. They’re still in the one-bed motel room so they sit side by side on said bed, eating and watching and Sam fussing over Gabriel getting rice on the sheets.

He realises it’s getting late when Gabriel starts to lean against him, realises that the archangel is probably still tired after near exhausting his grace earlier.

“Come on, let’s do your dressings then,” he says, pushing Gabriel off his shoulder and around onto his front. 

Once again he settles against the curve of Gabriel’s lower back, rubbing the angelica paste over Gabriel’s marred skin. The wounds are mostly scabs now; there’s still some blood but much less than at the start of all this. As he applies the medication something occurs to him.

“Why had I never seen these before you came back?” he asks Gabriel, “I guess they’re usually hidden by your clothes, but then I don’t remember them on the DVD-”

“Whoa whoa whoa, are you saying you actually watched the whole of my Casa Erotica DVD?”

Sam’s glad Gabriel is on his front so he can’t see Sam blushing.

“I – only to make sure you hadn’t left any other messages in there!”

“Of course,” Gabriel drawls, “and did you and Dean both watch it, or did you wait until you were alone, hm?”

“I did not wait until I was alone! Dean just – happened to be out when it occurred to me to check…”

Sam can’t see Gabriel’s expression but something tells him he’s got a smirk and a raised eyebrow for that. Thankfully he doesn’t ask Sam any more questions, and Sam can put all thoughts of that DVD out of his mind. There are times when it may be preferable to think about porn while straddling someone, but _this is not one of them_.

He finishes up hastily so he can move off Gabriel and on to bandaging him up again.

They fall asleep on opposite sides of the bed again. Sam wakes up early and discovers that they’ve both drifted off in the middle in the night and now Gabriel’s half-sprawled over him. As the remnants of some Casa Erotica-themed dream slip out of his consciousness he also realises he’s woken up half-hard. With an archangel on top of him.

He blames Gabriel entirely but still feels like he’s going to go to hell for it.

He gets up carefully, showers and plans where they’re going to go next. Then he wakes Gabriel up so they can get on the road.

“No breakfast?” Gabriel asks. Sam flinches as he remembers Dean saying those words back at Mystery Spot.

“You can snap something up while we’re driving. Just don’t get the car sticky.”

First they go one town over to restock on Gabriel’s meds, and then Sam makes the longer drive to a nearby town with a university. He’s found they’re more likely to have the older, more obscure documents than local libraries. They also have much longer opening hours, especially in the deadline peak times just before holidays. With any luck this one will be open all night, but if not, Sam will just sneak in.

Gabriel hasn’t asked exactly where they’re going (in favour of messing about with the stereo, changing pitches and making all of Sam’s music gradually become Queen’s greatest hits) until they’re parking next to the building.

“If this is a strip club it’s done a very good job of disguising itself as a library.”

“That’s because it is a library, Gabriel.”

“You mean we aren’t going to a strip club?”

“When did I ever say we were going to a strip club?”

Gabriel shrugs, no answer because he was just winding Sam up. After the fifth Oasis track became ‘Another One bites the Dust’ Sam thinks he gained some new level of immunity to irritation, which is probably a good thing in the long run.

“We – or at least I – are going to the library so I can get back to searching for a way to bring Dean and Castiel back.”

“I thought you brought me back to do that,” Gabriel responds, and Sam regrets how that makes him sound.

“Well, you don’t know anything, and – well, I couldn’t force you to help – wouldn’t try to force you…you’re still in no shape to bring anyone back right now anyway.”

“And what if Dean comes back ‘in no shape’?” Gabriel asks softly. It throws Sam for a moment.

“You can heal him.”

“You just said I’m not up to it. And even if I’m back on full power, even I can’t fix everything. Goodness knows what happens to humans in purgatory, Sam, what if he’s -”

“No. stop it. What does it matter?” Sam looks straight at Gabriel, eyes pleading. “He’s my _brother,_ Gabriel. I can’t just leave him there. We never just leave each other. And Cas, too – he’s like family – he _is_ your family – I can’t not get them back. If they come back hurt, well, I’ll deal with that then. Or – we’ll deal with it. Will we?”

There’s a long pause, then Gabriel gives in.

“How am I supposed to say no to those puppy eyes? Fine. Let’s hit the books.”

 

Libraries were not made for trickster archangels. It’s not too long before Gabriel is bored. He starts to fidget, to try and get Sam’s attention. Sam continues reading but he’s disturbingly reminded of when Lucifer was in his head. He caves when Gabriel tears out a page from a book and throws it at someone studying at a far desk. He’s actually a little relieved when the guy flinches, turns and looks at them suspiciously before turning away – showing that at least Gabriel’s actually real, not a hallucination like Lucifer had been. The guy even throws the plane back, of course hitting Sam. Nonetheless he doesn’t fancy getting kicked out for damaging library property so he decides to redirect Gabriel’s focus.

“Hey, can you translate this for me?” he asks, motioning to a book he’d picked out that’s in Norwegian. Gabriel slides himself across the table to the chair beside Sam’s and grabs the volume.

“Irrelevant, irrelevant, ooh I’ll be in that bit, irrelevant – why are you looking in this anyway?”

Sam shrugs “I thought we might be able to find a way to get them out of a side door – through a non-Christian route.”

“Well I didn’t see any Ice Giants in purgatory, but it’s worth a look I guess. Although – you know I can’t properly read this, right? I can pick out words and get the gist of parts but modern Norwegian is centuries newer than what I can speak”

“Oh right – why didn’t you say before? I wouldn’t have- never mind, just go and find out where the English version has got to. It wasn’t where it should be on the shelf.”

“Yes ma’am, and remind me to never let you organise a treasure hunt. You’d send everyone after books…” Gabriel leaves to find the replacement. It only takes him a couple of minutes to find it and return to their desk.

Sam holds his hand out to take the book, but Gabriel bats it away and sits in the chair next to Sam’s.

“I’ll read it, you take notes” he explains.

Gabriel selects a page and starts reading. He’s loud, so Sam shushes him. He takes the hint and moves in close, their shoulders pressed together, so he can murmur the words into Sam’s ear. Sam takes notes. That is, he tries his best to take notes. Sometimes he gets distracted by the way Gabriel’s American accent slips on the Norse names, his voice deeper and weightier on those words. When somebody passes through their corner of the library Sam becomes conscious of how closely pressed together he and Gabriel are and feels his cheeks grow hot. There is no comment when his pen falters.

Gabriel gets bored again after a while, announcing that there won’t be anything useful in the rest of the book and that he doesn’t get how Sam can study so much.

“It’s not that bad. And it’s necessary,” he protests.

“Whatever, I need to stretch. I’m getting claustrophobic in here.” And with that he snaps himself away, vanishes.

He hasn’t shown up again by the time Sam calls it a night. Sam hopes he’s okay.

Gabriel returns when Sam is in an all-night diner eating a very late dinner. Dinner for one had already started to feel stupidly lonely again so he’s glad Gabriel came to join him, even if he’s now eating a sundae so decadent it’s almost nauseating. He’s also just glad that Gabriel came back.

Tonight there’s no blood on Gabriel’s back. The scars are just that, raised reddish-white lines on his skin and without the power of the blood Sam suspects the power of the pagan runes will be reduced to near nothing Sam looks for the shadows of Gabriel’s wings on the bedspread, on the walls, but he’s finally able to tuck them fully away. Sam makes up the poultice again and applies it to be sure, though he foregoes the willow bark and just finds Gabriel an old black t-shirt to sleep in. He draws the tulpa sigil again and meditates, focusing on Gabriel regaining health and strength. This time it doesn’t cause the angel any pain; he sleeps soundly. When he’s too tired to think properly Sam falls into the second bed and lets himself sleep.

 

 

 

In the morning Gabriel isn’t there.

At first Sam reasons it away, assumes Gabriel’s just stretching his wings, enjoying his returning power.

By noon he starts to wonder how long Gabriel will be gone.

He wonders if Gabriel doesn’t realise that Sam went back to the library, and he circles back to the motel mid-afternoon. There’s no sign that the angel has been there. He goes back to the library.

By the evening he starts to worry Gabriel will exhaust his returning powers before he can get back.

When night has properly fallen he prays to Gabriel to come back safe.

Sam’s almost asleep when the thump of something hitting the other bed snaps his eyes back open.

“Gabriel!” he exclaims.

“Miss me kiddo?” Gabriel smirks. “A prayer for my safe return… I didn’t know you could be so sentimental.”

“Where have you been? Shouldn’t you be careful with how much mojo you use?”

“Please, I’m fine,” says Gabriel, but he looks more tired than should be possible for a being that doesn’t normally need sleep.

“Turn around, take off your shirt,” Sam orders.

“Not a big one for foreplay?”

Sam rolls his eyes.

“I want to check your back.”

Gabriel does take his shirt off and Sam steps in to run his fingers over Gabriel’s back. It’s warm and flushed red and the hairs have risen to gooseflesh – but the healed skin has held and there’s no bleeding. The scars on the shoulder blades look a bit strained but nothing else.

“Okay, you’re good. I’m going back to bed. Don’t run off like that, okay?”

He doesn’t actually see if Gabriel nods or not.

 

Gabriel’s gone again in the morning. Sam finds the next library to research in and tries not to think about how he already misses having company, just remembers that Gabriel will be back tonight.

The new pattern continues. On the first night Gabriel doesn’t check in, Sam prays again for his safe return. Then he draws out the tulpa sigil and wills it.

The gaps between check-ins are getting gradually wider over the next two weeks. Gabriel doesn’t say where he goes or what he does. He’s gone for days once and when he returns he’s hurt – something has dragged its claws through him and cracked open the old wounds, reinvoked blood into their spellwork. Sam grabs the first aid kit, which he had thankfully restocked with the healing herbs just in case something like this happened, and manoeuvres Gabriel to the bed. He slides into place on top of Gabriel, cleans the wounds and mixes and applies the angelica. He has just enough willow bark to cover the worst parts and binds it down with bandage.

He’d only got a one-bed room, so he rolls into the space beside Gabriel. He can hear the angel fuss and shift and fidget; two-thirds asleep, he rolls back to face Gabriel and slings a protective arm over him.

“Stay still. Let it heal,” he mumbles. The angel shuffles so they fit together more comfortably.

Gabriel’s gone by morning but comes back that night, and Sam takes off the bandages to clean his back. Sam shows him the case in the next town that he’s been side-tracked by and Gabriel tags along for the salt-and-burning. The body has been in the trunk of a tree all these years and it’s a bitch to get out – he could just torch the tree but a forest fire would be inconvenient to say the least.

The night leaves Sam cut and bruised; the ghost had control of the tree and had made it fight back. Back in the hotel, their roles reverse; Gabriel tends to Sam, erasing the injuries with sweeps of his fingers. The last one is a gash across Sam’s cheekbone that Gabriel wipes away with a thumb. Sam quickly falls asleep on the bed after. He remembers Gabriel sat up leaning against the headboard beside him, flicking through channels on the muted television.

When Sam wakes up he’s gone again. The memory of his touch lingers on Sam’s cheek.

Five days later Gabriel is still gone. It’s Christmas day, too, and Sam is miserable. True, the traditional Christmas has never been a part of Winchester life for him, but, Stanford excluded, Dean has almost always been there to share it with him. It reminds him of that Christmas they had thought would be Dean’s last but the memories make his chest ache. He wants to bury himself in work or research but everyone is closed up for the holiday. He’d even bought Dean a welcome-back Christmas present, hoping he’d be here to give it to him. Sure, it’s from a gas station, but that’s practically tradition.

So Christmas, no Dean, no Cas; Mom, Dad, Bobby and Jess are all gone and now there’s not even Gabriel. He ends up tuning into a radio station that’s broadcasting a Christmas service from a church. He prays to Cas and then to Gabriel, draws the tulpa sigil and meditates, believes that Gabriel is okay and has strength and will return safe.

Gabriel does appear, though, mid-afternoon though it’s already just starting to get dark.

“Clocked off announcing the birth of Christ already?” Sam teases, because it’s easier than admitting he was worried (again).

“What can I say? The hymns get old after two millennia.”

Sam exhales quickly, a voiceless laugh.

“Any good pagan parties you can go to instead?” he asks, remembering that Christmas is an appropriated pagan winter festival.

“Probably, but it just isn’t the same without the ritual sacrifice these days.”

Sam remembers the year they had to deal with Christmas sacrifices – remembers not wanting to celebrate Christmas knowing Dean wouldn’t be there next year; the year he was trying not to remember.

Dean borrowed some time but Sam’s finally at that Christmas, the one without Dean. He hunches over as the loss gnaws at his chest.

“Why aren’t you celebrating? Are you secretly a Grinch beneath that moosey exterior?”

“No – it’s just – how can I celebrate, with Dean…”

Gabriel sits down next to him on the bed.

“Hey. Hey…” he says, completely unpractised at comforting upset people. “You got me, isn’t that cause to celebrate?” he quips, but his tone is soft.

“It’s not really the same – sorry.”

“I know, I know. Sam, uh, it probably won’t help me saying this, but – about where I’ve been disappearing to…”

Sam stills, listens, because Gabriel’s refused to give him a proper answer to that question so far and Sam had stopped asking sometime last week.

“I’ve been searching for a way to bring Dean and Castiel back,” Gabriel continues slowly. “I thought I could find a way you’re too human to look for. I should have told you, I know, but – well, I thought I’d be able to get them back for Christmas. Wanted it to be a surprise for you, Sammy, a present – apparently I’m getting sentimental in my old age… I failed, though. I’m sorry. I wasn’t good enough to save your brother or mine.”

Sam doesn’t answer, processing Gabriel’s words in his head. He’s mixed up between Gabriel doing all of this for him and his lack of success feeling like Sam’s last hope has failed. He sighs.

“Well. Maybe you –we – just need some more time. We shouldn’t give up yet,” says Sam, but he can hear in his voice that he sounds like he already has.

“Sam…”

“I’m sorry, Gabriel, I’m going to be no fun this Christmas. I can’t stop thinking about Dean, facing God knows what in God knows where.”

Gabriel hums noncommittally, like he’s thinking. There’s a silence, then Gabriel turns to face Sam.

“Maybe I could distract you,” he offers, with that tone in his voice that means Sam knows exactly what distraction he’s offering.

“Really, Gabriel.”

“Yes, really, Sam. Why not? It’d pass the time, take your mind completely off Dean – or I’d hope so anyway – and hey, you might even have fun!”

“I don’t want a pity fuck, Gabriel.”

Gabriel rolls his eyes. “Who said anything about pity? I wouldn’t offer to do this with any old sorry bugger, you know.”

“What even is a ‘sorry bugger’?”

“Well I’m looking at one right now, but that isn’t my point.” Gabriel snaps himself so he’s straddling Sam’s lap, their faces only inches apart. “ _This_ is my point.”

He doesn’t push further though, just waits, offering.

It’s Sam who takes it. Takes Gabriel’s hair in his hand and pushes their mouths together. Takes what the archangel is offering because he’s been alone too long and he can’t get his brother back and Dean has left a void in his chest that he knows kissing, knows sex can’t fill but he just wants to forget that it hurts for a little while.

Gabriel isn’t gentle with him. He digs his teeth Sam’s lip and his nails into Sam’s shoulder and it’s exactly what Sam needs: external pain to mask what’s underneath. He returns it too, pulls sharply on Gabriel’s hair and raises bruises on his neck because Gabriel’s hurting too, has lost his brothers and his powers and parts of himself. Or maybe he’s just a little kinky. Either way Sam takes the noises that rise in Gabriel’s throat too, steals them and swallows them down and gives a few of his own in return.

He doesn’t follow how they lose their clothes or end up lying down just feels the increasing contact of skin on skin. Gabriel’s skin isn’t smooth; there’s topography of lines and ridges, the scars of symbols carved into his skin. Sam’s fingers run over it, reading the suffering Gabriel has gone through like braille. He wonders what the litany of battle scars that his own skin wears would say.

His hands still catch and press sometimes, at Gabriel’s waist, at his hips. He gets the best response when he clings to the archangel’s back.

Sam’s content with the shift of their bodies, their hardened cocks, against each other. But Gabriel’s impatient, sits up and grabs lube from the bedside table that Sam knows he never bought or put there and, still knelt over Sam, starts fucking himself onto his own fingers. Sam watches it with more arousal than he’d usually admit to, lets his nails dig crescents into the shifting hips they’re holding.

When Gabriel starts to lower himself onto Sam’s cock, though, Sam has other ideas. He flips their positions over, or tries to. There’s a tussle and a clash of knees and a whine from a deprived Gabriel that cuts out when Sam hovers over him, kisses him, takes Gabriel’s lip between his teeth once more.

Then he changes his mind again and rolls the Gabriel onto his stomach.

Sam stretches himself across the archangel’s back; bites at his ear, his neck, then slides back and runs teeth down his spine to feel the shudder it causes. Gabriel’s pressing his hips back impatiently until Sam complies, lines up and presses forward into slick tightness and heat. He groans, falls forward to press his forehead to Gabriel’s back.

The scars are worst over the shoulder blades. Reminders of Gabriel hiding and his grace and the pain Sam caused when he brought him back. Sam mouths at the rough skin, sucks as slowly pulls out of Gabriel, bites as he shoves back in. Over and over across the archangel’s back until the red and purple blooms hide the scars, Sam’s marks covering the old. It makes Gabriel writhe underneath him but always trying to arch into the touch and Sam can feel the vibrations of the moans under his lips.

The pace gradually becomes more frantic, more erratic; Sam does his best to bring Gabriel over the edge with him as he feels himself getting close. The tension builds him higher, higher, until he finally breaks and falls and Gabriel follows him over.

 

As a distraction, it works. Sam even gets to enjoy the afterglow for a while before he remembers Dean again. The thoughts make him roll abruptly out of bed, disturbing the angel he’d still been half-sprawled over.

“Where’s the fire?” Gabriel asks sluggishly.

“Nowhere – it’s nothing – just – I probably shouldn’t have done that.”

“Done what? Me?”

Sam nods.

“And why not? Did it not distract you? Was it not enjoyable?” Sam opens his mouth to answer but Gabriel continues smugly. “Those are rhetorical questions by the way. I could tell that the answer’s yes to both. You’re very responsive, y’know.”

“It’s not that, Gabriel, it’s just – Dean – “

“Oh give yourself a _break_ Sam – and give me one too. Don’t beat yourself up over actually managing to enjoy yourself for once. Look,” he says before Sam can protest, motioning for him to sit back down. “Obviously getting Dean and Castiel back is priority but if you focus every waking minute wallowing in research and guilt you’re just gonna burn yourself out. You’re allowed to look after yourself, you know.” He crawls around to the edge of the bed, rests on his heels next to Sam. “And, kiddo, Dean would want you to have some fun, definitely would want you to get a little action. You aren’t abandoning him, not at all – but he’d hate to see you go all Norman Bates. And so would I.”

“I guess you’re right,” Sam says pensively. “Just – remind me sometimes, okay?”

“It would be my pleasure – hopefully literally,” answers Gabriel. “So if I’ve smooth talked you out of self-loathing does this mean you’ll come back to bed?”

Sam smiles, amused at Gabriel’s eagerness.

“Nope, I’ll think I’ll shower instead.” Gabriel’s face falls, disappointed. “I guess we could see if it fits two…” Sam says mischievously – because it really has been ages since he’s had any ‘fun’, as Gabriel puts it. The angel is out of bed and hot on Sam’s heels to the bathroom.

Five minutes, a bruised elbow and a sharp knee to Sam’s balls later they decide the shower really isn’t big enough for two. Gabriel shrugs and raises a hand to snap and expand it but Sam’s mood is gone now and he uses the hand not cupping his balls to slide open the door and push Gabriel out.

When he can stand straight again, Sam starts washing, trying to beat out the tension in his muscles with the spray. Gabriel hangs around in the bathroom, admiring the array of marks Sam’s left him with in the mirror.

“Wow, Sam, I knew you’d be the kind to like it a bit rough but this is full-on kinky,” he says as he twists to look at the mess of his back.

“You can heal them if you don’t like it,” Sam retorts through the glass.

“Didn’t like it? Sam, I thoroughly approve of this side of you. These babies are being left for a while.”

“Whatever floats your boat,” Sam replies, though he secretly feels a little proud of himself.

As Sam continues showering he realises he didn’t come unscathed, either. He’s okay with that.

He refuses to buy anything Christmassy for dinner but every local takeout is apparently closed. Gabriel flits away and returns with beers and Chinese from the next state and Sam has to admit it’s pretty damn delicious.

The fortune cookie fortunes are absolutely dire so Gabriel conjures them up some new ones

“Help! I’m trapped in a fortune cookie factory,” reads Gabriel from his.

“Gabriel, that joke is terrible. Dean’s been trying to pull that one on me since I was six,” Sam says, but he’s smiling.

“Spoilsport. Read yours then.”

Sam cracks the cookie and pulls out the slip of paper.

“’Nice ass, Winchester’…gee, I wonder who wrote that?” Sam says, and this time he chuckles. Gabriel is unapologetic.

When the food is gone Sam turns on the TV but every single channel is playing something sappy and Christmassy, even the porn. Then Gabriel takes the remote and flicks to a channel that Sam is sure was playing ‘Love Actually’ (again) a minute ago but now is playing some Japanese game show called ‘Takeshi’s Castle’. Sam remembers Gabriel’s fondness for Japanese game shows back in TV land, with ‘Nutcracker’. He wishes he’d figured out how to play the game before he got hit and the turn had passed to Dean. This ‘Takeshi’s Castle’ isn’t really his humour, but it’s secular and entertaining enough and there’s a certain element of Schadenfreude involved.

So he drinks beer and hangs out with Gabriel and also lazily makes out with Gabriel. They gradually drift closer together until Gabriel is tucked under Sam’s arm and there is something about it that feels comfortable and right.

Occasionally something will remind him of Dean, which makes him miss Dean, but for once it’s overlaid with fondness instead of guilt. He will get Dean back, but after seven months he’s allowed to take a day off.

 

The next day Sam is woken by an excited archangel bouncing on his bed.

“Rise and shine, Sammy-boy!” he crows.

Sam rolls and puts his head under the pillow.

“Aw, you’re no fun. Come on, I’ve been out and slicked the floors of five different Boxing Day sales already while you’ve been sleeping.”

“Wow. I hope you didn’t get anybody killed; those sales shoppers look like they wouldn’t think twice about trampling a fallen person.”

“I assure you, only egos were damaged. Even I go a little easier around the holidays.” Gabriel is still bouncing.

“Will you quit the jumping, please? Did you eat a store’s worth of candy or what?”

“Not an _entire_ store…I don’t like the gobstoppers, you see.”

“Well, fancy that,” Sam deadpans. When he eventually thinks to check the time, he realises he’s slept half the day away already. “Shit, I need to get up and get back on the case,” he says.

Gabriel rolls his eyes, but graciously agrees to transport them into the library of the next university they’d been planning to check out. It’s closed for Boxing Day but that isn’t a problem for them. Gabriel even thoughtfully whammies the security systems to ignore them.

Sam holes up by anthropology – his search having broadened to every culture he could find in the hopes of finding purgatory in there along with a way in. Gabriel wanders away over to art history and comes back with some of the religious artwork catalogues. While Sam reads about the underworld of the Yanomamö people Gabriel flicks through the pages of his books, giggling like someone looking through old facebook photos of them and their friends – which, Sam realises, is pretty much exactly what he’s doing.

Sam gives up on the Yanomamö when it looks like any contact with their spirit world includes a lot of dubious drug use and moves onto the Inuit.

“I already checked them out, no luck,” Gabriel tells him. “Nothing Aztec or Mayan either, unless you fancy a mass human sacrifice; the doorways their pyramids opened have been sealed shut again.”

Sam looks thoughtful.

“Sam, you are not considering mass human sacrifice.”

“No! Of course not. I was just thinking, how far did you fly when you were researching?”

“Quite a way up into Canada, part way down South America. Crashed out in the pacific when I tried to visit Japan, that wasn’t so fun.”

“Your grace still not up to long flights?”

“Apparently I did push it a bit far, yeah.”

“Did you ever go to Scandinavia?”

“Not for a fair few centuries,” Gabriel answers slowly. “Why?”

“Maybe there’s something Norse that would work.”

“There’s no purgatory in Viking lore, Sam.”

“Well, not explicitly, maybe,” Sam says, “but we shouldn’t rule it out.”  He returns to the books on the table and finds some on Norse anthropology.

“This feels like you’re researching my family – well, surrogate family,” Gabriel tells him.

“Wanna help dish the dirt?” Sam offers.

“I’m good, thanks. I’m getting pretty bored here; I might go find some real fun.”

“How long will you be gone?” Sam asks.

“Dunno. Hadn’t thought that far.”

“Well, if you come back for dinner there’s a pretty awesome Italian in town we could go to.”

“Wait, is this you asking me out on a dinner date or you bribing me to come back quickly with food?”

“Maybe a bit of both.”

“Well in that case, Sammy, I’ll make sure to come back for dinner.”

Gabriel stands and leans across the table to give Sam a peck on the lips, quick press in and slow to pull away so that Sam instinctively leans to follow the retreat. Then Gabriel pulls back fully and says, “Hold that thought for when I get back,” with a smirk before snapping away.

Sam finds holding onto the thought a little distracting, but he valiantly works his way through research. He knows a little Norse history already, Pagan rituals and festivals that ended up assumed by Christianity (don’t think of _that_ Christmas, you’re bringing Dean back). He finds some Christian theology textbooks too and does some cross referencing.

He finds that the old Norse world of the dead, Niflheim, sounds kind of like purgatory. They’re both cold, old lands; Niflheim is the only world out of nine that is allocated to the dead, so supposedly not only humans go there but the Jotun and dwarves and other races – monsters by their standards. He figures Gabriel would have noticed if purgatory and Niflheim were the same place, but at least they could be similar enough that if Sam finds a way to raise the dead from Niflhiem, with a pagan-god-cum-archangel helping it will bring back Dean and Cas instead.

He keeps researching, going to the internet when books run out. He starts formulating an idea from scraps of useful information. It’s a long shot, but after bringing back an archangel from purgatory with one far-fetched method he can’t help but feel a little confident.

Gabriel comes back around eight, appearing draped over Sam’s back. Sam makes a couple of final notes then lets Gabriel return the books with mojo and zap them out of the library.

Breaking people out of purgatory not being the best dinner topic, Sam leaves revealing his findings for later. Gabriel happily relays tales of a few more pranks he’s pulled instead and Sam lets himself laugh freely. The conversation flows - as does the beer and, at one point, the spaghetti. Sam is once again reminded of how lonely it had been before Gabriel came back. And he doesn’t exactly mean since he lost Dean and Cas, either. The company Gabriel provides has a different edge to it, one he hasn’t had since Ruby (without the side of demon blood) or maybe even Jess.

They walk back to the motel so Sam can stretch his legs after sitting all day. On the way Sam tells Gabriel his idea which goes something like this:

1) In Norway it is currently Jul, the season which among other things is when the restless dead return to earth and join the feasting –a weak point between worlds

2) They should therefore go to Norway and do some more research on this, so that they can-

3) Mash up Norse and Enochian spellwork and mythology to open a side door to purgatory and bring back Dean and Castiel. 

“How are you going to just open a door and get them out?”

“Hel - she’s your daughter, right? And ruler of part of Niflheim. I know it’s a bit out of her jurisdiction, but I thought – if you were okay with it – you –we – should see if she’d help find them.”

Gabriel doesn’t reply to that, just looks thoughtful.

“… Only if you’re okay with that, Gabe,” Sam repeats.

Gabriel runs a hand through his hair distractedly before replying.  “It’s just been a while since I’ve gone so fully back into my pagan life – Elysian Fields excepting. I’ve been skimming along as a secular trickster for a while now. Or at least I was until you and your brother pulled me back into being an archangel.” Gabriel laughs dryly. “I guess I may as well let you pull me back into being Loki as well.”

“Thank you,” is all Sam can think of to say.


	3. Act III

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so there is one bit of pre-7x23 canon divergence, and that is that in this 'verse Bobby's house didn't get burnt down. (aka I forgot that it did until after I had already written a bunch of scenes there). Anyway, enjoy!

They do not attempt to have Gabriel fly them both to Europe. Sam does, however, consent to Gabriel creating a gold credit card with which to buy their plane tickets. Sam manages to snag some last minute seats on a flight that leaves the next afternoon. He drives the car up to Singer Salvage overnight so they can leave the pickup truck there. Sheriff Jody Mills has been keeping an eye on the place since Bobby’s passing and Sam drops her a text so she knows that the car is there and his.  When they’ve sorted their stuff out Gabriel flies them to Sioux Falls Regional airport where they will catch a short flight to Newark International. At check-in Gabriel offers to sort them both out , which surprises Sam since he’s normally the one left doing – well, everything. Now Gabriel leads the way instead and then at the desk somehow gets them both a free upgrade to first class. Sam’s not sure if he used magic or is just that charming. It was probably a mixture of both.

“You would have settled for us being peasant class if I’d left it up to you,” Gabriel tells him by way of explanation afterwards.

The first flight is short, no first class to speak of – that’s for their long haul one. Gabriel gets fidgety and Sam wonders what will be worse – the trip to Scotland with a petrified Dean or this one to Norway with a hyperactive five-year-old of an archangel.

They get about an hour free between the two flights, during which Sam savours the complimentary comforts, coffee and WiFi of the first class lounge. Gabriel disappears into duty-free and comes back just as they’re due to board the plane, brandishing a lollipop the size of his head.

“If you eat that on the plane I imagine both you and the rest of the cabin are going to end up very sticky,” Sam notes.

“It’ll be worth it,” Gabriel replies. “If you get sticky I’ll be happy to help clean you up afterwards.” He waggles his eyebrows.

“Funnily enough, that does not sound like a particularly enticing prospect,” says Sam.

When they’re on the plane Gabriel unwraps the candy monstrosity and looks crestfallen when he discovers it is not one big lollipop but a container of smaller ones. On the other hand, it is still a pile of lollipops amounting to the size of his head, so he isn’t too upset.

Sam would really love to kick back and enjoy flying in the lap of luxury, but he is completely worn out from driving all last night. He manages to stay up long enough to eat the dinner, which is delicious and contradicts his preconception of airline food. After that he reclines his chair and falls fast asleep.

 

Sometime mid-flight he is shaken awake by Gabriel.

“Wha’?” he asks groggily, his body reluctant to wake up.

“Sam , I think my back’s playing up again,” Gabriel tells him, voice low and hurried. “I can’t see what’s happening but—” He pauses to reach over his shoulder and scratch.

The half of Sam that isn’t still asleep starts to worry and hauls himself into a sitting position.

“Let me take a look – turn around.”

“My, er - body modifications might disconcert the other passengers or stewardesses if they saw, don’t you think?”

“Well, where else can I take a look?”

“The bathroom? The lighting would be better in there too.”

Sam nods. “Okay, lead the way.”

Sam climbs out of his reclined seat and pads down the aisle behind Gabriel, past the couple of other passengers in their section, to the first class bathroom. Gabriel pushes the door open and holds it for Sam to go in.

The bathroom is like a real small bathroom, not at all like the economy offering. The bright fluorescent lights make Sam blink, force the last dregs of sleep away.

“Okay, let me look. Not that I could bring any of the stuff that could help in my cabin baggage, but –“

Sam is cut off by an archangel insistently pushing him into the counter whilst pulling him down for a kiss.

He goes along with it for a minute, the press and curve of Gabriel’s lips still new enough to him to be distracting. Then he remembers why they are meant to be here and pulls away.

“Gabriel – your back-” Gabriel shushes him, pulls him down again into another kiss.  Sam lets him, follows along with Gabriel’s tongue sliding against his, slides his hands up under the archangel’s shirt. Gabriel presses closer at that, but Sam’s paying more attention to the skin under his hands. It’s a little warm but no more than it usually is, the scars don’t feel agitated and they’re dry and free of blood. Basically, there’s nothing to suggest his back is ‘playing up’.

“Gabriel.” Sam pulls his hands away, pulling Gabriel with them where they’re still under his shirt. “Why did you lie about your back?”

“You would have just gone back to sleep if I’d told you I wanted to fuck you in the bathroom.” Gabriel smirks, shamelessly. Sam wants to be disapproving but his dick took way too much interest in Gabriel’s honest statement. The image of cramped, gross bathrooms had always put him off the idea of joining the Mile High club –but with that problem eliminated he has to admit the idea does sound kinda hot. Maybe very hot. 

“Someone might hear, though.”

“You’ll have to keep quiet then, won’t you? I believe the risk is supposed to be part of the appeal.” Gabriel says, tone suggesting he knows he’s already won this battle.

Sam shakes his head fondly and leans back down to meet Gabriel. Their kisses are more hurried now, fingers slip over buttons in a rush to undo them. Gabriel pushes up Sam’s undershirt so he can get at the skin beneath it. Sam pulls Gabriel’s shirt collar aside so he can trail kisses down his neck. They don’t undress, not fully - there’s not enough time for that. Gabriel undoes Sam’s belt and jeans, pushes them and his boxer briefs down over his hips and then shoves Sam against the counter behind him until he sits down, the height of it bringing him down to Gabriel’s level.

The angel makes quick work of his own jeans and underwear and soon he’s pressing in close, bringing weight and warmth and much needed friction between their erections. Sam bites back a moan when Gabriel starts rolling his hips, tries to reciprocate but can only get short rocks where he’s sat on the counter. To make up for it he wraps one large hand around the both of them and starts stroking. Gabriel’s head falls forward, a muffle “mnf” escaping his lips. His thrusts become shallower so they can stay together in Sam’s hand.

It becomes a race to see who can get the other off the fastest. Gabriel goes straight for all Sam’s triggers, light teasing touches over his nipples and hard bites down his neck. Sam wrecks Gabriel’s hair because he can before sliding his free hand up Gabriel’s back. It trumps anywhere else that Gabriel’s sensitive (above the belt at least), and Sam thinks he’s figured out why. Gabriel arches his back into the touch of Sam’s nails as the rake across the skin, light at first and then just shy of hard enough to draw blood. The thrusts are becoming more impatient, Sam’s hand on their cocks becoming more frantic.

When he digs his fingers in on Gabriel’s back, right on the edges of the shoulder blades, Gabriel’s hips stutter and he gasps, _fuck_. The lights flicker briefly. With his hand stretched flat he can rub fingers and thumb up and down each shoulder blade and Gabriel practically whimpers, his attentions on Sam become rougher, messier. Sam thinks, Sam knows, that he’s hit where Gabriel’s wings join his vessel. They may be on another plane, but that sure as hell doesn’t seem to matter.

Sam lets his nails catch the skin just a bit and it’s breaking point for Gabriel, hips slamming forward one last time as he comes over Sam’s other hand. Sam works him through it and when the angel’s gone boneless he kisses him lazily, hand frantically working his own cock until he’s coming too.

They rest for a few moments, panting hot breaths into each other’s mouths, Eventually a bump of turbulence reminds Sam that they are, in fact, in and airplane restroom.

“How long have we been in here?”

“Don’t worry, they probably won’t be suspicious yet; everyone else was asleep so it’s not like a queue will have built up”

“Still, we should probably head back - separately – and clean up a bit.” Sam gestures to the mess of come and rumpled clothes they’re wearing.

“Done.” Gabriel snaps and they’re both clean and dressed again. “Aaand done.” Gabriel vanishes out of the bathroom. Sam waits a second and then slowly unlocks the door to the bathroom. He ducks out and starts to walk back to his seat. An impeccably dressed older businesswoman raises one meticulous eyebrow at him. Sam can’t tell if she figured out what had gone on in the bathroom or if she’s merely suspicious that he doesn’t look the part to be first class, but he blushes regardless and moves on hurriedly.

Gabriel’s back in his seat like nothing’s happened. Sam sits down and his body immediately reminds him that, oh yeah, he is still running on far too little sleep.

“Wake me up when there’s food, Gabriel,” he says, reclining his chair a bit further so he can lie more comfortably. A few minutes later he feels the soft weight of a blanket being laid over him. He thinks he should say thank you, but before he can he’s already asleep.

~

When they land in Oslo it’s still dark and Sam is surprised when the co-pilot advises them to set their clocks to 7:52am. He mentions it to Gabriel.

“That’s winter in the real north for you, Sam. Go up far enough and wouldn’t be getting a sunrise at all.”

“Wow,” Sam replies, because of course he knows how latitudes work but he’s never really thought about the implications of it.

“Makes it no wonder that we spend twelve days celebrating when the sun starts coming back again, eh?” Gabriel grins, but there’s something old behind it.

Sam mulls it over in his head as they shuffle through passport control and customs and baggage reclaim. To live here hundreds of years ago, to watch as the sun spent less and less time in the sky each day – from days that must have been as long in summer as the nights became in winter -  you can’t have really known why it all happened, without science explaining orbits, and even if the knowledge of years and generations told you the sun will come back, the days will get longer again – was there still that worry deep down, some primal fear that maybe this time the days will keep getting shorter until the sun disappears forever? And then what happens to the shadows in the dark? They reign.

No wonder they celebrated after the solstice. No wonder they believed this was a time where the veil between life and death was thin – and there’s a lot of power in belief, Sam’s seen enough proof of that.

In the arrivals hall, Sam goes to an information stall and sorts out where they’re going to stay. Gabriel wanders off, presumably to find more candy, and returns just after Sam has booked a hotel in the main city and train tickets to get them there. Sure enough, he’s gained a carrier bag of snacks and is sucking one of the remaining lollipops from his shopping at the other airport.

“Aren’t you getting tired of all the lollipops yet?” he asks.

“Not really. I never get sick of sucking,” Gabriel replies with a wink.

“Maybe you can prove that later,” Sam says, because fuck it, why not go along with the innuendo sometimes. Gabriel raises one surprised eyebrow, considering for a moment.

“Deal, big boy.”

 

When they’re on the train Gabriel pulls a book out of the bag and hands it to Sam. It’s an English-Norwegian phrasebook.

“You’ll be able to get by with English in the city, but you’ll need to know some of the lingo if we end up in the sticks.”

“Oh, okay – thank you. Surely you know the language though?”

Gabriel snorts. “They spoke old Norse in my day; using that now would, at best, be like me trying to talk to you in Shakespearean English.”

“Ah. Ok.”

The sun rises.

 

They can’t check in to the hotel this early in the day so they just dump their cases and then head back out into Oslo. First up on Gabriel’s agenda is breakfast, although they ate some on the plane so it’s more like second breakfast. He drags Sam through the streets, apparently led by the nose, until he takes them into the second bakery they see and gestures excitedly at the counter.

“Cinnamon rolls!” He says excitedly, before ordering five. As soon as they’re handed over he grabs one and takes a bite. The moan he makes as he savours it is bordering on the obscene. Sam ushers him back out the shop.

“What’s so great about these cinnamon rolls?” Sam asks.

Gabriel finishes off the roll before he deigns to answer, and starts picking at the next as he speaks. “Look, usually I’m a fan of how America pumps everything with sugar and sweetener and additives, but when it comes to cinnamon rolls even Cinnabon doesn’t come close to the originals – and in Scandinavia they – mmm - they bake them traditionally. Of course the best are Swedish, they did invent them after all, but these are pretty close. Here, this one’s yours.”

Sam takes the bun that’s handed to him. It’s a bit more of a knot than a flat spiral and there’s some sort of glaze on the dough and pearl sugar sprinkled on the top, although no icing like he’s used to seeing. He takes a bite. It is pretty fucking tasty.

“S’good,” he mumbles around his mouthful.

“pfft, ‘good’. They’re excellent and you know it.”

They eventually end up at where Sam actually wanted to go, a Viking research centre. He bluffs them into the library section as postgrad researchers, and an assistant shows them the books and how to find the translated documents on the computer. Sam starts looking through anything that seems relevant and makes notes. Gabriel complains that they’re going to miss seeing the city in daylight, says they should do something touristy. Sam tells him they’ll have time for that after he’s got his brother back. Gabriel doesn’t ask again, but rather helps Sam instead. There’s only one computer, so his ‘helping’ is mostly flicking through the Norwegian books and telling Sam when what he can recognise of the text seems significant enough for Sam to look up in English.

The research is, thankfully, productive. Sam finds out more about how the Norse worlds and afterlife function, learns you can certainly travel between them, and even discovers that there are some rituals for summoning Hel and raising the dead and the like – although they’re rare, and the relevant manuscripts are only accessible by appointment. Luckily this was a quiet time of year as most academics took a break and he was able to book one for the next morning.

It’s already dark again when they leave, having found out all they could for the day. The city is lit up, both from regular street lighting and the yuletide decorations that give everything an air of festivity. They meander around until it’s time to eat, Gabriel telling stories about ‘how this all looked back in my day’.

They eat in some side-street restaurant that serves semi-decent steak but very nice local bread that Gabriel requests more of on Sam’s behalf when Sam is too awkward to do so. Their legs lace together under the table, the contact comforting – that is until dessert when Gabriel starts running his foot very high up Sam’s thigh.

When they get back to the hotel, Gabriel remembers his promise from the morning.

 

 

The next morning they go back to the Viking centre and are allowed into a climate-controlled room full of carefully archived manuscripts. Sam lists the ones they want and they are brought to the reading table by the assistant. Usually archive visitors are supervised but Gabriel charms the woman into leaving them there alone. Once she is gone, they start working. They’ve got to work out the ritual in Old Norse, meaning it’s Gabriel who does most of the work reading the texts and copying down passages. Sam makes a list of ingredients that Gabriel relays to him. Gabriel mutters under his breath as he works, white-gloved hands skimming over the runes as he reads them in tones unfamiliar to Sam.

Gabriel explains the details of the ritual he has planned over lunch. The door to Niflheim, so to speak, must be opened at sunset, and will close at sunrise. They are playing on the veil between worlds being thin during Jul, so the best location would be something that emanated this - namely, a burial ground. A few minutes on the internet shows that one of the largest discovered Viking burial grounds is in the Borre national park, Norway. Tonight is too soon, so they’ll try and conduct the ritual tomorrow. It is out of visiting season, which means they’ll be able to set up during the day. The list of items Sam wrote down are most easily collected by Gabriel, who says he’ll do it while Sam rests up tonight.

Sam is starting to feel like he’s useless at the final hurdle, feels bad that Gabriel is having to do everything, and he says as much.

“Hey, don’t sweat it, I’m really not sure what happens once we open the door but I bet I’ll be relying on your hunter skills to save all our asses.”

“Still, I know you agreed to help but you are doing _so_ much for me…”

“Well, you’re paying me in sex so it evens out.”

“Dude, that isn’t _payment_.”

“I know, I know, calm down…so maybe I am just doing this for you. Heh, what have you done to me that makes me willingly act so selfless, Sam?” Gabriel’s tone is light, but there’s something heavy in the way he looks at Sam.

 

Plans made, they sightsee a little before heading back to the hotel. They pack up and check out, deciding to head to a hotel in Borre so they’re closer to the site. They look up one to go to then travel there by wing, check in and settle into what feels like the hundredth hotel room they’ve shared. Sam still smiles at the idea that he’s sharing hotel rooms with an archangel, though.

Sam has to attempt Norwegian to rent the hotel room, which the phrasebook is plenty useful for -  Gabriel’s sniggering at his accent, however, is not. When they get to it the room is pleasant, spacious, and they’d be sorted if it wasn’t for a fatal problem: Sam can’t access the Wifi.

“There’s a secure one that looks like it’s for guests but they haven’t given me any code.”

“So go ask at the desk for one?” suggests Gabriel, throwing over the phrasebook. Sam thumbs through the pages and sure enough there’s a phrase for “What is the code for the internet?” – which sounds nothing like English, so he’s glad he looked it up.

Gabriel comes down to the reception with him, but stands back as Sam goes up to the concierge desk and asks “Hvor mye å leie deg for natten?”

The expression on the woman’s face goes from shock to anger rapidly, and she replies in harsh Norwegian. Sam looks confused and repeats himself. The woman tells him in halting English, “People who harass staff are made to leave immediately, Sir.”

Sam looks utterly perplexed, which is about the moment that Gabriel’s suppressed sniggers break free into full laughter. Sam looks round, very quickly puts two and two together, apologises to the concierge and all but sprints back to the room in embarrassment.

“Oh god, you changed the phrasebook didn’t you? What the fuck did I just say?” Sam asks once they room door has closed.

Gabriel doesn’t answer, preferring to continue chortling to himself. Sam grabs the phrasebook and the laptop and opens google translate. He types in the Norwegian phrase. He reads the translation. He groans.

“ _Gabriel_! You made me try to hire her as a hooker?! Are you fucking kidding me?”

“Oh man, that was _glorious_ , Sam, your poor clueless face!” Gabriel giggles.

Sam can tell he’s pulling what Dean would call his bitch-face right now but he really doesn’t care. Gabriel eventually calms down enough to see it.

“Wow, okay, someone’s pissed. Maybe I’ll give you a little time to cool off.”

“No, you don’t have—” Sam tries to protest, because he’s not _that_ mad, can’t ever really be that mad at Gabriel these days, but Gabriel’s gone.

He sighs and slumps on the bed, but he knows Gabriel will be back eventually.

 

‘Eventually’ turns out to only be an hour later, which Sam is silently grateful for. He kisses Gabriel by way of greeting and tells him he’s impossible.

“I am but what you make of me, Sam,” Gabriel replies.

“You can’t blame that on me! I would not make you so obnoxiously full of innuendo.”

“You love it really.”

Sam smiles his head and shakes his head, then presses his lips against Gabriel’s once more. Because maybe he does love it, just a little. He hears Gabriel snap and his eyes are closed but he can tell they’ve travelled because he is suddenly really fucking cold.

“Gabriel, wha—” Sam pulls away and takes a second to look around. They’re standing by a frozen lake, surrounded by woodland, the sun is setting behind the treeline and making the blanket of snow glitter. It’s stunning.

“Just a little something I thought you might like,” says Gabriel.

Floating on the lake just off from the shore is a platform with a little wooden hut, not much bigger than a shed. There’s smoke rising from the small chimney in the roof, and it must be warm because the ice underneath it is melted. Gabriel grabs Sam’s hand and leads him across a short jetty to the hut and inside.

Inside it’s warm, very warm. Three of the walls are wrapped by two tiers of step-like benches, and then against the fourth is the door, a small stove and a bucket of water with a ladle. Sam turns to Gabriel.

“A floating sauna?”

“Yep. Scandinavian specialty. Thought we could try and sweat some of the stress out of you.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“Seriously though, you need a chance to relax. Tomorrow isn’t going to be exactly easy, I thought you deserved some time off beforehand.”

“So considerate! Maybe I have started to make an honest trickster of you after all,” Sam teases, wrapping his arms around Gabriel and nuzzling his neck.

“Yeah, yeah, now get off me and strip out of those clothes.”

Sam dutifully undresses and folds his clothes, placing them on a shelf on the wall next to some towels. Gabriel watches the show unashamedly, merely vanishing his own clothes. Sam stretches out along a bench on the long wall. Gabriel stokes the fire a bit, adds more water to make it a bit more of a steam room, and the lies down on the shorter wall’s bench so that his head meets Sam’s at the corner. Sam feels the tension gradually leech out of his body into the steam. Their arms dangle off the benches, and Sam reaches for Gabriel’s hand and loosely threads their fingers together.

“Thank you, Gabriel. This is great.”

“What can I say? I know how much you enjoy me getting you hot.”

Sam laughs “Well, I can’t deny it…”

They stay there longer than is probably advisable, but eventually Gabriel rouses the now semi-asleep Sam and says, “Come on, get up, time for step two.”

“Step two?” Sam dutifully clambers upright.

“Yep, you know how these things work right?”

“Yeah, kinda – first you sweat and then you jump in cool water, right?”

“Exactly.” says Gabriel, grin turning wicked. It takes a second for the penny to drop.

“Oh fuck, I am _not_ jumping into the frozen lake!”

“Oh yes you are! Sam Winchester, you fight ghosts and demons and went up against the devil himself, and you are going to jump in that lake. I’ll go with you.”

Sam resigns himself to agreeing.

“Fine. Let’s do this quick.”

Gabriel flings open the door and they run out into the frigid air, heading around the platform to the back. It’s fully night time now, but the moon is hanging huge and bright in the sky, casting a silver light for them to see by. Sam can see how the ice is very thin where it’s been used for this before. It doesn’t make him feel any better about going in.

“Okay Sam, we jump in on three, got it?” Sam nods and steels himself.

“One. Two. Three!” Gabriel jumps, pulling Sam in with him. The ice cracks and they plunge in, icy water punching the air out of Sam’s lungs. It’s cold, holy fuck is it cold, but it’s exhilarating too. It’s shallow enough that even Gabriel can stand on the lake bed and have his shoulders break the surface, and the archangel quickly swims over to Sam and hugs him close.

“Shitting _hell_ , this is colder than I remember,” he says through chattering teeth, and Sam laughs breathlessly as they cling to the heat of each other.

“Come on then, let’s get out again.”

They swim to the ladder attached to the platform and climb back up, heading around quickly to the heat of the sauna and the towels within to dry themselves with. Sam watches the fluid movement of Gabriel’s back in moonlight, how the cold makes his scars stand out, coloured silvery-white in a way that’s not entirely natural. Sam wonders if the runes are reacting to the power of being back in their homeland.

 When Sam’s dressed again Gabriel snaps them back to the hotel room, and then snaps them both up mugs of hot chocolate (Gabriel’s is piled high with whipped cream and marshmallows; Sam’s is more conservative). They relax back on the bed, drinking and trading chocolate-flavoured kisses. Eventually Gabriel tells Sam it’s time he slept and time Gabriel went to gather their things for the ritual. Sam does his best, his body thrown out by the change in time-zone and the rush of emotions over Gabriel and getting Dean back tomorrow that are coursing through him. He isn’t sure how long it takes him to fall asleep.

At some early hour of the morning Gabriel returns. Sam knows this because he’s woken by the archangel climbing into the bed next to him, curling up against Sam and burying his face into Sam’s shoulder.

“Are you okay?” Sam whispers. He feels Gabriel nod. “Is it going to be dangerous tomorrow?”

“How could it not be?” Gabriel mumbles into Sam’s shirt, and Sam understands that past the first steps they really don’t know what they’re messing with here. He hopes they make it both out the other side relatively unharmed.

Sam wraps his arms around Gabriel and pulls him even closer. He pushes a knee between Gabriel’s so their legs intertwine. Gabriel’s arms end up one tucked up between them and one across Sam’s back; both hands fist tightly into Sam’s shirt. Sam presses a kiss to the top of Gabriel’s head and briefly squeezes his arms, like he’s trying to reassure Gabriel or himself that he will keep them both safe. He really hasn’t considered what the consequences of pulling this stunt may have on Gabriel or his still-not-fully-back grace, but now that they’re on the last straight he’s praying that his angel will be okay.

“Stop thinking so loud, some of us want to rest before the big event.” Gabriel complains.

Sam whispers his next words into the softness of Gabriel’s hair.

“Would this be a bad time to say that I think I might love you?”

Gabriel freezes, even stopping the human motions of breathing and his heartbeat. He replies carefully, “Only if you’re just saying it because this is the most cliché-appropriate time to say that.”

 “No, I – I’m not just saying it. I really think I might.”

Gabriel relaxes again. “Well maybe after I heroically save you brother and Castiel you’ll be a little more certain,” he teases.

Gabriel doesn’t say anything about his own feelings. He doesn’t have to. Sam’s fairly certain that Gabriel would never give the help he’s given Sam, is giving Sam, for just anyone. That Gabriel wants Sam to be certain is evidence enough for him that he stops praying and starts simply willing Gabriel to be alright. After all, God has never really been there for him, he’s always made things happen by his own will instead.

 

Gabriel is still in his arms when he wakes up again.

 

They head to the burial ground at midday to set up the ritual. Gabriel first works his magic on the security so they aren’t disturbed, and then wanders through the burial mounds to find a good spot. He finds a clear area to his liking and tells Sam to drop the bags of things. Then he digs out a long stick and a piece of paper, handing them both to Sam.

“Write those runes into the ground or snow on each mound. It should keep the dead in them dormant while we open the door.”

Sam walks off to do just that, leaving Gabriel to start preparing the main ritual. When he returns a large circle has been paced out and cleared of snow. A fire has been set but not lit in the centre, pine branches to one side of it and a few sharp knives to the other. At the south-west point of the circle sits a deer skull; an elk antler sits at the south-east. Both are covered in runes that Gabriel carved before they left and stained with both their bloods (“we’ve both died and returned, that’s some heady power to add to the spell,” Gabriel had told him).  The line of circumference between skull and antler has been chalked with runes three lines deep, and now Gabriel is halfway through writing more around the rest of the circle.

“Much more left to do?” Sam asks.

Gabriel directs him to a tree about twenty feet away and tells him to collect the all mistletoe from it. There’s a lot, and Sam has to climb awkwardly to collect most of it, though thankfully his height comes in useful.

When he returns for the second time Gabriel has finished the runes, laid out a wolf pelt facing the North point that also has their blood on it, and is currently pouring the blood of a carrion crow into a horn bowl.

“Go collect the pine sap, would you?” he asks, gesturing to another tree with a spout driven into it and a bowl underneath.

Sam does as he is told, takes the spout out and then brings bowl of sticky white sap to Gabriel, who tips it into the blood and then squeezes in the juice of some mistletoe berries. He stirs the mixture with a crow feather. The sun is just starting to sink.

“Okay, time to clear out anything spare and light the fire.”

Sam takes the bags and stones and puts them outside the circle. He brings back in the flint – apparently a lighter is too modern for this – and together he and Gabriel coax the fire into life. It happens surprisingly quickly, and Sam wonders if Gabriel gave it a little help with his powers. Once it’s burning nicely Gabriel turns to Sam.

“And now it’s time for my favourite part – you being shirtless,” He teases.

Sam sheds his layers quickly, throwing those out of the circle too. When they’re gone Gabriel steps in with the blood mixture and a quill fashioned from a large feather from the carrion crow. Sam crouches a little, and Gabriel writes runes on his goose-fleshed skin.

“Blood from those who feast on the dead,” Gabriel murmurs as he writes, voice heavier and more serious than it was a minute ago. “Blood of the tree that lives when the sun dies, and blood of the plant that grows when no other life will. They will lend you their strength that you may also defy death.” Then he repeats the words in Norse, tones low and rusty against his tongue.  He writes runes down Sam’s spine and across his collarbones, one each on the backs of his hands. He takes the feather he stirred with and wipes it over Sam’s forehead and in a line down his nose. Then he hands the things over and takes off his top layers so Sam can repeat the writing on Gabriel. Sam has to hold the paper with the runes on in one hand and the quill in other, so Gabriel holds the bowl for him and recites the Old Norse.

When Sam’s finished, they carefully place the bowl at their feet, remove their shoes and then take the pine branches that have been waiting next to the fire and place them on the flames. They catch immediately and start to smoke, filling the clearing with a haze. The sun has dipped its edge below the horizon and lit the snow with a red-orange smoulder.

Finally, Sam and Gabriel each pick up a blade from by the fire. They stand facing skull and antler, fire between them and that edge of the circle. They each hold out their left arm, knife in their right. Gabriel starts chanting. At the right moment he catches Sam’s eye, and Sam nods. Together they raise their blades and slice a line across their forearms. The blood drips into the fire.

The blood hisses as soon as it hits the blaze and smoke billows up, more than could be considered natural, clouding Sam’s vision for a moment. As it clears, Sam becomes aware of a new light, piercingly bright white, a new line forming in mid-air between the southeast and southwest points of the circle. It spreads out, and it forms not so much a doorway but a jagged archway. As the ends meet the ground the enclosed space grows darker than the last dregs of sun lighting the clearing.

Gabriel whistles, and from seemingly nowhere a raven flies to his shoulder. He walks around to the front of the fire, beckoning Sam to follow. When he reaches the doorway, he whispers something to the raven and then sends it through. It disappears into the darkness.

They wait a few minutes, and the sun slips completely behind the horizon. They are left in twilight. Gabriel hold’s Sam’s hand reassuringly.

A light appears in the darkness of the doorway, a warm and rich yellow that gets closer and closer until the silhouette of a woman carrying a candle is visible. She stops just sort of the threshold and surveys the two men standing before her. In the under-lighting of the candle she looks formidable, one half of her living and one half dead and all of it held with silent dignity. Sam knows this is Hel, Loki’s daughter and a ruler of the underworld.

Gabriel steps forward and starts talking to her in Norse. Sam has no idea what they are saying, but it looks like at first Hel is confused, doesn’t recognise Gabriel. Which is fair, since he skipped out on the pagan party a while ago and has gone a bit more angel since then. Eventually he seems to convince her, though, and Sam assumes he’s now telling her what they want to do.

When they’re done negotiating, Gabriel turns to Sam. “Hel thinks she knows how to get to purgatory, though of course there is no name for it in Norse. She agrees to take us there, find Dean and Castiel and retrieve them. She can use your blood to track Dean through the familial link, but we have nothing for Castiel so we’ll just have to hope they’re together.”

“Couldn’t we use your blood, or let her feel some of your Grace?”

Gabriel snorts.

“Our bloods have no connection, and I think letting her touch up my grace counts as some sort of parent-child incest - but that isn’t an option anyway. I’m pulling a pagan here, it’s not exactly a good time to play the angel card.”

Sam looks, properly, and realises Gabriel’s right. The difference in him is subtle, but it’s in the way his eyes are less celestial gold and more earthy brown, the way his stance roots his feet to the ground instead of stepping them light and ready to fly. There’s a gravity to him in this circle that’s more primal than grace.

“Okay. Well, I’m sure Cas will be with him, and if he isn’t Dean should have something we can track Cas by.”

“In that case all we need now is something for Dean to recognise us by.”

“Won’t he recognise me?”

“You may not be the one who finds Dean, we’re enlisting someone to help.”

“Well, there’s this.” Sam digs into his jeans pocket and pulls out the amulet he gave Dean when they were kids, the one he fished out of the trash when Dean threw it away. He’d brought it as a sort of talisman for himself.

“That will do fine. Let’s go.”

They both step forward to go through the doorway when Hel stop them and says something to Gabriel. He turns to Sam ruefully.

“Apparently I’m not to come with – somebody has to guard the door and make sure nothing takes advantage of it. You’re on your own, kiddo.”

“But – okay,” Sam says, realising he doesn’t really having a choice in the matter.

“Just be sure to be back with some time before sunrise, that’s part of the agreement with Hel.”

“Why?”

“I’ll explain when you’re back. Now, go!” Gabriel lifts himself to tiptoes and kisses Sam quickly before pushing him through the doorway into Hel’s domain.

There’s no physical feeling of changing dimension, but Sam is acutely aware that he is now somewhere other. The world is dark and flat and cold, not in the piercing way of the frozen lake but in a muted, dead way that slowly settles into his skin. Hel has extinguished her candle but the darkness is not absolute and Sam’s eyes slowly adjust. He sees that they are following another path, and if he looks behind he can see the faint outline of the door in the distance. Soon they join a greater road, wide and stretching long into the distance, smaller paths leading into it like tributaries. There are a few others on this road, spectral figures that Sam thinks are souls.

They are travelling down Helvergr, the Highway to Hell. Sam smiles to himself, thinks it’s an appropriate route to take to save his brother.

Time stretches. It feels like they’ve walked for days or maybe only hours. Sam tried to gauge the distance in paces but even that started to feel fluid. He doesn’t feel fatigued, though, like his body knows they haven’t reached their destination yet. He still has the blade he cut his arm with, but it is not needed here. He slides it through his belt.

Hel stops sometimes to talk to a lost soul and help direct them on their way. She and Sam have no common language to talk in but Sam feel’s there’s some sort of comfortable understanding between them. She talks conversationally in Norse sometimes, so Sam talks in English. He tells her all about Dean and Castiel, and about how awesome her father is. He stalls and blushes, embarrassed, when he realises just how much he’s gone on about Gabriel, but Hel doesn’t seem to mind.

After a time – though Sam’s not sure what time is in this place – they turn off the highway onto a path that is little more than a trail in the dirt. Hel whistles and a raven – quite possibly the same raven – comes to her shoulder. Like Gabriel did, she speaks to it and it flies off into the darkness.

A forest starts to grow up around them, starting with low grasses and shrubs and slowly becoming trees on either side. A wolf howls somewhere close by, and not long after joins them on the path. It’s far larger than any normal wolf, has the same weight of power that Hel and Loki hold.

“Fenris?” he asks Hel. She nods and seems pleased that Sam knows the wolf’s name.

The three of them walk together through the growing forest until they meet a wall of trees, grown twisted and knotted together to be solid as concrete. Hel steps forward, ushers the other two to step back. She places her hands against the wall and speaks words that don’t even sound like Old Norse, perhaps her own language of the underworld, and Sam can feel the thickness of gathering power on his tongue as she makes the trees shift and unravel to create a way through. A way into purgatory.

 They climb through – Hel with far more grace than Sam – and the atmosphere changes yet again. The air is still here, eerily so, but distant roars and screams carry on the non-existent wind. The peace of the Helvergr is left behind: here danger prickles the skin.

Fenris comes up to Sam and nudges the cut on his arm, Sam understanding the cue for him to reopen the wound. He slides the knife over it, allows the wolf to take in its scent and lap up the taste, the swipe of rough tongue closing the cut again. Then Fenris nudges Sam’s pocket, and Sam pulls out the necklace and puts it over the wolf’s neck. He doesn’t think it will fit, but he discovers that a lot of Fernris’ bulk is soft fur.

Fenris sniffs the air twice and then runs off into the forest, leaving Sam alone again with Hel. This time he does not sheaf his blade, and he can see that Hel’s stance is tense and ready.

It doesn’t take long for the monsters to be drawn to the opening they’ve created.

Vampires come sniffing out of the trees, sneaking up the sides but Sam hasn’t been trained a hunter for nothing. When the first one to find them attacks he decapitates it without too much difficulty.

The fights get harder as more come, never too many but never when they expect them. He fights the best he can, though he has to get in close to use his short blade and that means the monsters get more hits in. In the lulls he remembers that Dean has been doing this since May.

Whenever he looks over at Hel she is more than holding her own – the monsters here are not familiar with her, constantly underestimate the power she has. She’s quick to educate them.

It has probably only been a couple of hours when a howl echoes through the forest back to them. It’s not like the hungry or pained cries of werewolves that they have sometimes heard, but clear and strong. Fenris is coming back to them.

He arrives just as a pair of vampires converge on the site, and Sam gears up to fight them when two blades swing from above Fenris and slice the heads clean off. His brother and Castiel are riding Fenris through purgatory.

_He’s got Dean back._

Fenris doesn’t stop, just aims for the opening in the tree wall and leaps him and his passengers through. Hel pushes Sam through next and follows through last. On the other side Hel claps her hands to the trees and they knot the way closed once more.

It gives them a moment to catch their breath, Dean and Cas sliding off of Fenris.

“Sammy?” says Dean.

“Yeah,” Sam replies, and then he pulls Dean into a bone crushing hug. “And Cas, good to see you too,” he says when they break, laughing breathlessly as he pulls Castiel into a loose hug too. The angel hesitates, the carefully lifts his arms around Sam.

But they aren’t back yet.

“Come on, we’ve gotta get going, we’re on a timer,” Sam tells them, remembering they have to be back before sunrise – though he has no idea what the time is on Earth.

They start to walk, but Fenris starts nudging at Dean and Cas as they move.

“I think he’d like us to ride him again, Dean,” says Castiel.

“Well, I ain’t gonna say no to that. It’ll be nice to let someone else do the running for once.”

They stop to climb back on Fenris’ back, who breaks into a loping trot. Hel and Sam run to keep up, but back on the Helvergr they don’t get tired.

“Where exactly are we?” Dean asks, and Sam tells him. “You’re serious?! That’s kinda awesome!” Dean starts humming the tune under his breath and Sam smiles. He knew Dean would like the road’s nickname.

“What are we even doing here, Sammy? Who are these buddies of yours?”

“That’s Hel, ruler of some of the Norse afterlife, and your noble steed is Fenris, mythical Viking wolf.”

“Wow, talk about playing with the pagans – not that I mind, not if they’re getting me and Cas the hell out of purgatory – but how did you swing it?”

“I, uh, managed to find a ritual. I had some help.” Sam says, evading the details slightly. He kind of wants to keep Gabriel to himself for just a little longer.

“Oh yeah, who?”

“You’ll see when we get back to Earth.”

The journey back takes much less time than the one there. Maybe that’s because Hel knows the way now, or because they are all eager to get back to the doorway in time. They don’t speak much, Sam running and Dean and Castiel exhausted by purgatory. They send the raven ahead to let Gabriel know they are coming back.

Sam can see the morning twilight as they approach the doorway. Dean and Castiel dismount and step up to the threshold with Sam.

“Come on Dean, back to Earth,” Sam grins, and they walk back through.

Gabriel is on the far side of the circle and turns around as they step through the portal. Sam can immediately see he’s been fighting, blade raised ready and a cut on his cheek, but Sam will tend to that later.

“You’re back!” Gabriel cries, and the honest relief and smile on his face could light up the sky. He tackle hugs Sam before pulling him down into a kiss. Sam returns it but breaks quickly. Dean coughs pointedly.

“Later,” Sam mouths at him.

Gabriel pushes past the three of them to the doorway where Hel and Fenris still stand.

“Fen! Good to see you,” he says, leaning over the threshold and hugging the wolf. The great beast becomes a puppy in his arms, jumping up and licking Gabriel’s cheek. Gabriel laughs and scratches behind his ears for a minute before putting him down and turning to Hel.

“And Hel, darling, there is just time for your wish,” he says. He turns and picks up a spray of mistletoe that he had woven into a circlet, placing it on her bowed head with a look of tender fatherly affection. Then he takes her hand and pulls her over through the doorway.

Sam, Castiel and Dean, after being shushed, watch with quiet respect as Loki’s daughter steps into the human world for what may be the first time in centuries. Her first few steps are tentative, and then she gives an ethereal laugh and skips off among the mounds.

“Okay, am I just dreaming all this? Because this fucking surreal, man,” mutters Dean as he watches the half-alive, half-dead woman skip around a burial ground. Sam pinches him.

“Hey!”

“It’s real,” Sam teases.

The sun breaks over the horizon and Hel comes back to the doorway to her realm. She hugs Gabriel tightly, and then surprises everyone by hugging Sam, and the raising a knowing eyebrow at him. Finally she kisses Gabriel on the cheek, waves goodbye to Dean and Castiel, says something in Norse and steps back through the door. Together she and Fenris walk away from the portal, and as the sun rises the door fades from view.

There’s a moment of reverent silence, which Dean breaks by asking, “Okay, so where are we and where can I get a burger?”

“Norway,” Gabriel tells him.

“ _Norway?!_ ”

“Yes. But don’t worry, I know a very good burger place in Oslo.”

Together Gabriel and Castiel transport them back to the hotel, and Sam goes and rents an extra room for Dean and Cas. Gabriel flies out to get Dean his burgers, which he announces, “pretty good considering they aren’t American.” Gabriel then flies out again to get more for Castiel.

They all sleep through the rest of the day, and at night they relieve the leftover stress by having a moonlit snowball fight in the local park. Dean declares that he misses America, so Sam gets online and gets them onto the next flight back. They make their way to the airport and Gabriel once again gets them into first class.

They have a little time before the flight, so they raid duty-free to get new clothes for Dean and Castiel and then alcohol to tide Dean through a long-haul flight. Sam knows purgatory must have been bad – worse than he experienced – when Dean doesn’t even crack a joke comparing it to his phobia of flying. But he doesn’t press Dean for details, not just yet.

Dean and Castiel do, however, press Sam for details on how he got Gabriel and then them back. He gives them the abridged version, and thankfully has to be quick as they start to board. They listen with interest, and after Dean asks loudly, “And at what point did you two start fucking?”, causing Sam to blush, Gabriel finally decides to join in the conversation.

“Well, Dean-o, if you want all the details I’m the one for those.”

“No, no, don’t want those. Just wandered when – this,” he gestures vaguely to the pair of them, “happened.”

“Well, let’s just say that Sam and I had ourselves a _very_ merry little Christmas.”

Dean makes an “ew” face and doesn’t ask further.

They settle into their first class seats ready for the way home. Dean sings Zepplin’s ‘The Immigrant Song’ under his breath as they take off.

All through the flight Sam can’t stop grinning. He’s got his brother back, he has Castiel back, and he has more than he would have imagined in Gabriel.

“You know,” he whispers in Gabriel’s ear when the cabin is asleep, “I’m pretty damn sure that I love you.”

“Well I’m pretty damn glad about that,” Gabriel mutters back “It would suck if I’d gone through all this effort just for it to be unrequited.”

Sam kisses him over the partition between their seats. Their flight is cruising back to the states at 36,000ft, and Sam feels on top of the fucking world.


	4. Act IV

When they land back in the States their first destination is Bobby's place. However, after one long haul flight Dean is adamant he doesn't want to fly anymore, even a short one back to Sioux Falls. Nobody else wants to go through the slog of driving all the way there, so in the end Gabriel offers to fly them all there instead. At one point Sam might have doubted that Gabriel had the strength to transport them all, but the with elation of everything Gabriel did working and getting him Dean back Sam thinks there's nothing the archangel can't do.

They land in the middle of Bobby’s dust covered living room.

“It feels damn good to see this old place again,” says Dean with a grin, 'I wonder if Bobby left any booze behind?”

He goes to through to the kitchen to find out.

“No thanks for the ride then?” Gabriel calls after him. Cas turns to Gabriel and remarks “Your ride is…unusual. It didn’t feel like when I transport passengers.”

“Perks of being an archangel, Cas,” Gabriel dismisses. “We run a bit differently, it’s bound to feel unfamiliar to the teleportation of the lower ranks.”

Castiel looks like he’s about to press his issue further when Dean returns with two dusty beer bottles in his left hand, opener in the right. He cracks open the first bottle and, to Sam’s surprise, offers it to Gabriel.

“Thanks for the help,” he mutters gruffly as Gabriel takes the bottle. From someone as emotionally constipated as his brother, Sam figures this is a particularly heartfelt gesture.

It’s getting on for about dinner time. Dean and Gabriel volunteer to search the cupboards for food and Cas is happy to watch while Sam calls Jody to clarify that they aren’t burglars. The hunt for non-alcoholic sustenance is unsurprisingly unproductive. There’s half a package of crackers from the 90s and some army rations that look like they were assigned during the Vietnam war. The decision to get takeout is unanimous.

Gabriel offers to play angel-express delivery and get their food. In his short absence the others settle themselves into the well-worn springs of chairs and sofas in the lounge. Sam does make an attempt to set out plates and cutlery on the coffee table, but Dean shoots him a reprimanding “Dude, it’s _takeout_ ”. He realises trying to get Dean to eat fast food with any level of civilisation is a lost cause, so he puts the cutlery back – with the exception of one defiantly-brandished fork for himself.

In the end he’s glad he left the coffee table bare because Gabriel decides to reappear on top of it, posing flamboyantly on one leg with a stack of pizza boxes in one arm.

“Ta-Da!”

Gabriel slides the boxes into Dean’s eagerly outstretched hands and slips the plastic bag that had been swinging from the crook of his other elbow onto the table. Unburdened, he steps back, swaying slightly, before letting himself fall backwards off the table and into Sam’s lap. Gabriel’s pretty heavy and the landing winds Sam.

“Seriously?” Sam complains, although he still winds an arm around Gabriel’s waist.

“What can I say, I just can’t help falling for you,” Gabriel teases back, and Sam blushes.

“Would you two please not? Some of us are trying to eat!” groans Dean. Sam quickly discovers that Gabriel isn’t heavy enough to stop him from picking him up and dumping him onto the next-door seat on the couch (because while it’s true that he does like occasional bouts of relationshippy cutesiness, he does not intend to demonstrate that in front of Dean). Once satisfied that he won’t have to eat through his brother and Gabriel cuddling, Dean pushes some of the boxes towards them with the hand not currently employed in shoving pizza into his mouth.

“Oh yeah, the plastic bag’s for you,” Gabriel tells Sam, so he grabs it off the table and looks inside. There’s a large side salad inside.

“Thanks Gabe, for remembering that some of us like to actually consume vitamins.”

“Pizza has vitamins,” Dean protests, “the government said it’s a vegetable.”

Sam rolls his eyes and then grabs his fork, giving it a pointed shake in Dean’s direction before taking the salad out of the bag and removing the lid.

 

They eat mostly in silence, a bit at a loss for small talk topics that don’t revolve around depressing things like purgatory or the glaring absence of the owner of the house they’re in.

There’s plenty of food to go around, eventually putting them into a sleepy stupor of full stomachs. Dean’s fallen asleep sat upright in the arm chair, head hung back over the top and snoring softly. Cas doesn’t seem relaxed enough to be asleep, but he’s sitting there quietly and eyes closed as if the food coma has got him too. Sam twists and swings his legs up on to the couch, stretching out on his back as much as his height will allow. Gabriel has to shift quickly to avoid being hit, then once Sam is settled he climbs back onto the couch and tucks himself comfortably around Sam’s body.

Gabriel falls asleep before Sam does, which Sam notes with concern. Perhaps he pushed him too hard, making him fly them when the ritual must have drained him. Hopefully napping will speed up his recovery.

Sam wakes up to the sound of Castiel talking somewhere behind him. As he becomes more alert he realises that Castiel is talking to someone at the door. Then he realises that someone is Jody.

“I’m sure Dean and Sam trust you, Sheriff, but they’re not awake right now and so can’t really receive guests and I’m not sure I can let you in without them saying I can…”

Jody starts to protest and Sam guesses this may have been going on a little while so he interrupts, “Cas! I’m up, let her in.”

He struggles to stand up quickly, hindered by the powerful archangel currently clinging to him like a koala. He manages to pry Gabriel off of him after a few seconds and get around the sofa to greet Jody, who has been allowed into the house by now.

“Jody! It’s so great to see you” he tells her, pulling her into a hug. She wraps her arms around him, and the weight of something hanging from one arm bumps his side. He pulls back to take a look and sees it’s a large bag, though he can’t see inside. Then a heavenly, unmistakeable scent reaches Sam’s nose.

“You brought pie?!”

“Yep. Home-made and everything,” Jody grins, “thought you boys might appreciate it”

“Definitely. Although we should be quick – once Dean wakes up he’ll have it finished before anyone else can get a bite in!”

They’re out of luck, however, because when they get to the table Dean is stirring, woken by either the noise or the smell of pie.

What follows feels in some way like a family dinner, unconventional family though they make. They sit on the mismatched furniture of Bobby’s lounge and, when a pie slicer is not to be found in the house (“Why did I ever expect Bobby to own one?” mutters Jody), they each take a fork and go every man/woman/angel for themselves like it’s the Hunger Games. The victor is undoubtedly Dean. Gabriel did make a valiant effort, but Dean had the drive of a pie addict who can’t snap up confections whenever they please. Thankfully Dean knows the concept of savouring something, his brief pauses between bites to do allow lesser competitors to get at least a mouthful or two.

The pie dish is empty in a matter of minutes. Dean licks his fork contentedly and proclaims it ‘awesome’.

“I’m glad you boys enjoyed it, don’t have anyone else to cook for these days,” says Jody, “So…care to fill me in on what you’ve been up to?”

“How far back do you want us to go?” Sam half-jokes.

They end up giving her the Cliffs Notes version of the last few months. It still takes them well over an hour, but a dubiously-sourced crate of beer offered by Gabriel keeps them sustained. Jody makes for a good audience. When they finish she fills them in on what she’s been up to, which takes considerably less time, and then says it’s time for her to head on home.

After Jody leaves, the brothers find themselves surprisingly exhausted just from telling the story again. With nothing pressing to do (for once), they let themselves drift off into sleep.

 

 

Dean wakes early the next morning and goes out into the salvage yard to find his Baby. Sam had mentioned yesterday that she was out here, but not said exactly where, and since Sleeping Beauty Samantha is still snoring he’ll have to find her himself.

He sneers at Sam’s douchey pickup truck on his way past. He can admit that is has some practicality with all the stuff they cart about, but a car like that just has no _soul_ to it. Not that Sam ever appreciated such things.

Dean walks through the lot until he sees the familiar silhouette of the Impala, under shelter and covered in tarpaulin, but unmistakably Baby. He pulls off the covers to discover she’s still in the wrecked state Meg left her in at Sucrocorp. He’s glad Sam didn’t trust some half-assed mechanic to do any repairs. He can fix her up himself, just like he always does.

By the time Sam wakes up, Dean is well under way hammering out dents and cleaning up scratches. He looks set to be out there all day, and Sam decides that today he’ll try and make the house a bit more fit for human habitation. This generally means spring cleaning the rooms, with a few handyman jobs thrown in and putting some food in the cupboards that hasn’t been selected by Dean or Gabriel.

He enlists the angels’ aid with mixed success. Castiel, for all his willingness to sample the human pleasures of hamburgers and pornography, is less willing to try out the human task of cleaning. He plays the clueless angel card, claims he’d only make more of a mess trying to help. Sam raises a sceptical eyebrow at him, because maybe Dean buys that shit but he does not. Still, he’s in no mood for trying to force Cas into helping him clean so he lets it slide and finds him something else to do. Bobby’s library was at some point returned to its room from the back of Jody’s car, but the books are still all boxed up. He asks Cas if he can sort through and shelve them. Castiel agrees, although whenever Sam checks in on him he seems to be reading rather than shelving.

Gabriel agrees to help, but Sam soon discovers that he really is more of a hindrance. He’s too easily distracted, liable to clean off a desk only to empty the contents of a drawer onto it to nose through. He also likes to try and snap Sam into frilly aprons and headscarves. Sam sends him out to look through parts of the house yet to be cleaned so the mess is kept away from Sam’s efforts to tidy. It has occurred to Sam that he could just ask for an express angelic dust-busting service, but there’s something cathartic about scrubbing and dusting and vacuuming the house out by hand. Also, he may trust Gabriel with his life but he doesn’t trust him to not give the house dick-patterned wallpaper or something equally ludicrous under the pretence of spring cleaning.

When Sam returns from a midday grocery run he calls for Gabriel to help him unpack. He receives a muffled reply.

“Do I have to? Checking out the basement is way more fun!”

Sam dumps the bags in favour of making sure Gabriel won’t do anything that would make the foundations structurally unsound. He finds him just as he’s discovering the panic room.

“Dang, Sasquatch, you didn’t tell me Bobby had a sex dungeon! That kinky old fox…”

“That is a mental image I really, _really_ don’t need,” Sam complains.

“Well, I could help you paint over it with some new images of our own? The whips and chains seem to all be in good order,” Gabriel finishes with an elaborate wink.

“No.”

“Awww, you’re no fun!”

“Try going on a cold-turkey demon blood detox locked up in that room and then talk about how fun you find it,” Sam tells him bluntly before turning away to go back upstairs. Gabriel catches him around the waist, hugging him from behind to stop him moving.

“Okay, no sex dungeon. Not this one, anyway.” he mumbles reluctantly into Sam’s back. It’s not at all an apology, but there’s a comfort in the gentle squeeze of Gabriel’s arms that betrays his consideration for Sam’s dislike of the panic room. Occasionally Gabriel manages to have an emotional maturity greater than five, but he wouldn’t want anybody knowing that.

 

At lunch Dean predictably complains about how none of the food has seen even a hint of a deep fat fryer.

“Can’t you send your angel boyfriend to go get us proper food?”

“This _is_ proper food, Dean,” Sam points out. Although now Dean mentions it, it’s surprising that Gabriel hasn’t flown out anywhere yet. He asks Gabriel about it, who shrugs.

“Thought you wanted me to stick around and help today.”

“Well, yeah, but when do you ever – your back is still okay, right? The runes?”

“Yes, Samantha, stop fretting. Jeez, I stick around at your request and you think something is wrong?” He flits across to Castiel in the next room, steals the book out of his hands and reappears next to Sam. He then swats him round the head with the book. “Better?”

Sam rolls his eyes. Gabriel grins. Then he banishes the book back to Cas, who’s been staring through the doorway at Gabriel with furrowed brow since it had been taken. Finally he picks up a heaped plate of food, gives Sam a quick peck on the lips, and heads out the kitchen towards the tv. Sam grabs his own food and follows.

 

 

By mid-afternoon Gabriel is thoroughly bored of the house and ventures into the yard. Dean has been working on the Impala non-stop and she’s looking good, but he’s having a major problem with the windows. Gabriel manages to appear just as Dean wants someone to complain to about how you can’t just _get_ 1967 Chevrolet Impala windows these days, how getting them custom made would stretch the budget of even the freshest of fake credit cards, why Meg couldn’t have been a bit more careful because replacement parts don’t just magically appear out of thin air –

“Don’t they?” asks Gabriel innocently. Dean looks up from the car to shoot a sarcastic reply, but it fades on his tongue as the penny drops.

When he looks back at the Impala her windows gleam back at him, whole and new and winking in the late afternoon sun.

When Dean tells Sam about it later Sam can tell Gabriel’s officially won his brother over, because you know, there’s bringing him back from purgatory but then there’s _the Impala_.

 

 

Once Baby is as good as new it doesn’t take long for Dean to start itching to be doing something – namely, hunting. From the short experience Sam had of purgatory he would have thought it would have provided enough monster killing to satisfy anyone’s appetite for life but apparently not.

It takes less than an hour on the internet to find a case in the vicinity. Some guy is claiming he’s being haunted by his late wife, which could be a hoax or could be a salt-and-burn job. Either way, it’s something light to start them off with.

Dean hustles Sam out to the Impala as soon as he can get a duffel packed. The angels stay behind to hold the fort and to be on call if they need any help. Sam was tempted to ask to bring them along just so they don’t have to dig up any graves by hand, but Dean seemed to be packing the shovels as enthusiastically as everything else.

By the time they actually arrive at Fort Dodge there isn’t much they can do except drive down the street the man lives on to see if anything obviously screams HAUNTED or LOOK HERE FOR EVIDENCE (it doesn’t). They check into a cheapest motel like in the good ol’ days and wait until morning to check out this ghost.

Except that it turns out to not be a ghost.

Sam should really be expecting this by now.

At first it seems like nothing at all. Miles Anderson sounds dutifully upset by the events, but his descriptions of how the ghost of his ex-wife keeps visiting him as night falls and making him feel responsible for her death with harsh words sounds more like a guilty hallucination than a real ghost. There’s no evidence of cold spots or moving things around or EMF significantly above background levels or any of the other signs that say ‘ghost’. In fact the only thing going for the ghost theory is that Mrs Anderson did indeed die – from falling asleep at the wheel and drifting into an oncoming truck.

Sam would be perfectly fine just recommending the man see a therapist and then heading back to Bobby’s, but Dean wants to stick around and see if they can’t get a looksee at this so-called ghost on her evening guilt trip. Miles seems willing for them to come back that evening to see it, which basically rules out the theory that he’s making it all up.

Lo and behold as the last dregs of light drain from the sky, a spectre of the late Celia Anderson flickers into reality. She completely ignores Sam and Dean where they sit on the living room sofa, advancing instead towards Miles in the easy chair. An angry stream of words tumble out of her mouth, a tirade of _you did this it’s your fault I was so tired it’s your fault I was driving you put too much on me you crushed my spirit long before that truck did._ Miles doesn’t try to run from it, just shrinks back into the cushions with the pained face of someone who’s been convinced that everything they’re hearing is true.

Now, Sam and Dean don’t just sit there and let this happen. They throw salt at the spectre. They swing an iron bar through it. They had left the shotguns in the car so as not to alarm Mr Anderson but dean still shoots with his concealed handgun for good measure. These all have no effect whatsoever.

Ten minutes after it arrived, the apparition disappears.

Perplexed, they thank Mr Anderson and ask if they can come round with a few more questions tomorrow morning. He nods mutely.

After the initial round of _Dude what the hell did we just see_ they brainstorm ideas on what they could be facing. In the end the only conclusions they can think of are that either it’s something brand new to them or, more likely, this is an apparition or projection being sent by someone who is probably using witchcraft to do so.

Which is just _fantastic_.

The relatively benign spell suggests that this person is new to the game and hasn’t yet learnt how to do the really nasty spells. It also suggests that they picked up witchcraft specifically to try and drive Miles mad with guilt. Hopefully this will make them much easier to take out.

Their ‘interview’ next morning is basically an exercise of finding out who could have had a grudge against Miles Anderson or blamed him for his wife’s death. It turns out that few people on his wife’s side of the family approved of him. Fortunately there’s only one such family member living in Fort Dodge, Celia’s mother (Miles sounded like he’d never been happy about the fact). It makes deciding who to scope out first much easier.

Maria Davies , though clearly grief-stricken by her daughter’s death, is still kindly and infinitely hospitable to the two ‘reporters’ who have come to ask her about this sensitive topic. Her opinion on her son-in-law’s stories is firm, and she is certainly willing to share it.

“There’s no such thing as ghosts, and if that man is seeing things it’s surely a product of his own grief or guilt – and he could do with keeping quiet about it. He’s not the only one who won’t see Celia again and the rest of us don’t have the luxury of hallucinating.”

Maria has the kind of healthy scepticism in the supernatural that, if the world had any mercy, would prove true.

“Well, she doesn’t seem too approving of her daughter’s choice of husband.” Dean mutters to Sam when Maria takes the coffee cups back to the kitchen.

“She also doesn’t seem to believe in the supernatural.”

“Could be bluffing to seem less suspicious? And she said she didn’t believe in ghosts, didn’t say anything regarding her views on witchcraft.”

“So basically we’ve still don’t know if we can count her out or accuse her. Great.”

Maria comes back in.

“So Mrs Davies, may we ask how you have been dealing with this tragic situation?”

Sam glances at Dean, hoping that he manages to convey ‘how do you think she’s going to reply? _Oh, with occult and arcane arts_?’ into the look.

“Well, I suppose through trying to honour her memory, and by going through all her old things in the house – sort of finding closure in the memories, you know?”

They both nod, although neither of them is personally inclined to settle for mere memories as closure.

“And my son, Mitchell, has been a godsend. He’s been staying with me since Celia – since the accident. He got compassionate leave from work so he could help out his old mum, god bless. He’s not convinced I should be sorting through her things so soon, but he still gets them out of the attic for me – I can’t climb the ladder at this age”

“So how is he dealing with the grief, then?”

“You know, I’m not sure. He bottles it up, mostly – or hides it from me at least. But he loved his sister dearly, must be in as much pain as I am…he must have found some other way to let that out.”

Sam and Dean exchange looks. This brother has just become suspect numero uno.

“Do you think we could interview him too?” Sam asks Maria.

“Well, he had to go back and check in at work today, so he isn’t around just now. He promised that he’d be back by late afternoon, though, so I could ask him when he gets back if he’d let you two lovely young men interview him.”

“That’s very kind of you. If he isn’t around now I think we can call it done for the day. Could I uh, just use your bathroom first?”

Maria tells him where to find it.

“Thanks. James will give you our contact number so you can let us know about interviewing your son.” Sam gets up and heads to the bathroom.

When he returns he and Dean make their goodbyes and leave.

“So, you rarely just go to the bathroom at a suspect’s house.” Dean says once they’re in the impala, “what were you looking for?”

“Family photos in the hallway, thought I’d see what this brother looks like.”

“And?”

“Completely unassuming and not at all witchy or evil – when he was younger, anyway. The was nothing more recent than his college graduation.”

“Well, I suppose the bad guys can’t always look like bad guys.”

“Yeah. So how can we be sure he’s the witch, Dean?”

“I guess we have to find out where he’s hiding his Hogwarts supplies.”

“I don’t remember satanic altars being on the lists.”

“Well then clearly you didn’t read the books closely enough, Sammy.”

Sam makes an amused noise. Then, he considers where in the house this guy could be hiding stuff. There isn’t much choice.

“You think it’s in the attic?”

“Yeah, that seems like the only place his mom can’t get to. Thing is it’s also going to be a bitch for us to get into without someone hearing.”

“Well, what if we get Gabe or Cas to zap us in?” Sam points out, because Dean seems to forget that they are allowed to ask for help on hunts.

“Oh, yeah, well I guess that would work.”

“I’ll call them then, they can meet us at the motel.” Sam sends a prayer to Gabriel, telling him they need him and Castiel to help with the case and where they should meet them.

“Dude, get your angel a phone already.” Dean tells him.

 

When they get to the room there’s no sign of either angel. Sam thinks maybe he didn’t point out that they should make their way over asap in the prayer. He sends another. When they don’t show up immediately, he adds _Come on Gabriel, tune in and listen already_.

They give it half an hour – enough time for Dean to buy some beers from the nearest store - and then Dean gets tired of waiting and rings Castiel. Sam’s surprised when Cas apparently picks up, wondering if Cas kept a phone on him through purgatory or if Dean made sure he got a new one.

Within two minutes Castiel and Gabriel both appear in the room. Castiel looks serious. Gabriel is nonchalantly sipping from a can of diet orange slice. Dean gives Sam some smug _my angel is better than yours_ look.

They quickly explain the situation. As soon as they conclude with “so we were hoping you could help us check it out” Cas vanishes, presumably to do just that. He returns after thirty seconds.

“Your suspicions were correct: there is an altar in the attic. It’s very basic, but contains the ingredients for simple spells such as the creating apparition you saw.”

“So, it looks like brother-in-law is our witch,” says Dean, “How should we deal with him?”

“Well, destroy the altar for sure, and somehow stop him from doing it again. What he’s doing right now isn’t so dangerous, but we don’t want him learning anything else.”

 “I could modify his memory so he has no recollection of turning to witchcraft or how to perform it,” suggests Castiel. Sam thinks to himself It really is convenient having angels around.  It would put him and Dean out of a job if they were to let them use their powers to clear up the whole case, but for some things at least it’s good to have those powers on call.

Sam suggests a plan: it will be best to catch Mitchell Davies when he’s in the attic, about to send Miles his next apparition – just so they’re 100% sure he’s the culprit. One of the angels should hide in the attic, staying undetectable and waiting for Mitchell to come in and start the spell. At that point, they’ll tell the others it’s time and the angel who stayed behind flies them all to the attic to confront Mitchell.

Nobody suggests a better plan, so all that’s left to do is decide which angel does which job.

“So Cas, d’you mind staking out the attic?” Dean asks.

“Actually I think Gabriel would be better in that role.”

“Are you kidding me? I don’t think I’ve ever seen him achieve sitting still and shutting up for more than a minute.”

“He’ll be fine, Dean. And I would rather I was the one responsible for transporting you and Sam.” Dean shrugs.

“Well as long as Gabriel doesn’t object and doesn’t blow our cover…” he looks at Gabriel pointedly.

“That’d be no problemo, Dean-o, don’t get your panties in a twist. I’d be happy to lurk in Mitchell the Witchell’s attic for a few hours.” There’s mischievous a glint in his eye. Sam hopes – probably futilely – that Gabriel isn’t planning anything. “So, Sammy, care to escort me to the premises?”

Dean narrows his eyes. “Can’t you just find it on your own like Cas did?”

“I could…but…” Gabriel replies slowly. Then he grins mischievously “but I want something to keep me warm in that attic and unless you want me to make out with Sam right here before I go…”

“Ew. Fine. Go both of you while I scrub my mind.”

Sam grabs the keys to the impala so he can drive them to the Davies’ place.

“Oh god, you better fucking keep things PG-13 in Baby. If I see a speck of a stain on her upholstery…”

“See you soon, Dean.”

Sam closes the door firmly behind them.

“You really know how to wind Dean up, don’t you,” he says with a sort of fond exasperation.

“Hey, that was me being restrained out of consideration for you!”

“That was restrained?”

“Yep. Unrestrained would have been doing this right in front of him -” Gabriel pulls Sam down so he can kiss him. Sam plays along for a few seconds before breaking it and directing him to the car.

When they’re on the road he asks Gabriel, “Why didn’t you respond to the prayer I sent you?” Gabriel seems surprised.

“I never received it,” he says, sounding a little uncomfortable.

“Oh,” Sam responds lamely, thinking that maybe he’s accidentally broached a tender subject, “…I guess it’s been a while since you’ve been properly tuned into angel radio, huh?”

“Yeah, I guess so,” Gabe agrees. They go quiet.

“Open up the glove compartment.” Sam says abruptly. Gabriel does so.

“What for?”

“There should be a cell phone in there. You should take it until we can get you your own one.”

Gabriel reaches in and sure enough pulls out a phone.

“My number’s in there as Robert Plant. Call or text it when Mitchell starts the witchcraft.”

Gabriel smiles and pockets it. “Gotcha.”

Sam drives them to the street one over from their destination and parks up. He explains that he doesn’t want to get too close to the house because the Impala is pretty distinctive and could evoke suspicion.

“D’you need anything else?”

“Kiss for good luck?”

Sam chuckles but complies, pulling Gabriel in and threading a hand into his hair as they kiss. He doesn’t break away so quickly this time.

 

When Sam walks back into the motel room he can immediately tell that Dean and Castiel were in the middle of some Important Conversation until they heard the key in the lock. There’s an awkward pause.

“So, get Gabriel settled into the attic okay?” Dean says too brightly.

“Yeah, he’s gonna contact my cell when it’s time. I gave him the spare phone from the car.”

Sam could try asking what they were talking about, but he knows there’s no point. Dean will stubbornly deny that anything was happening until it all comes out in some big argument and Sam just can’t be bothered. He could have cock-blocked the two declaring their undying love for one another for all he cares right now.

Sam wastes time on the laptop while Dean sorts through all the weapons they brought with them, picking ones to take then cleaning them meticulously. Cas pulls one of Bobby’s books out from the pocket of his trench coat and sits on the bed reading. Eventually Sam’s phone chimes with a text from Gabriel.

_Witching hour has begun_

Sam relays the message and they grab their weapons. With a touch to their foreheads, Castiel sends them all to the attic.

They land behind Mitchell Davies, who is too busy at the altar to notice. Gabriel quickly becomes visible and motions for them to shush.

Mitchell is muttering to himself as he adds herbs to a bowl. The words are the accusations that came out of the apparition’s mouth when it visited Miles. In the candlelight Sam can just make out a symbol painted onto the makeshift altar. The bowl is placed in the centre of it and its contents lit. Dean starts forward but Gabriel throws out an arm to stop him.

Mitchell Davies keeps muttering, but now his voice isn’t alone. The illusionary ghost of the late Celia Davies Anderson materialises to his left, hissing her tirade _of it’s your fault I died you should have done more you should have done something_ into his now terrified face.

“N-no – you shouldn’t be here – you’re meant to go to your husband…Celia stop it! It wasn’t me!”

This does as much good as the salt and iron had previously. Sam turns to Gabriel. He has a very self-satisfied smirk on his face.

“You?” Sam mouths. Gabriel’s smirk becomes a grin of confirmation. Sam can’t believe he didn’t guess that leaving Gabe to wait for this asshole would lead to him going trickster on the guy.

Now that Mitchell is frantically trying to get away from his own illusion their presence is very quickly noticed.

“What the fuck?!”

“Ah, Mitchell Davies – can I call you Mitch?” Dean steps forward, gun swinging casually in his hand, “you seem to be having a bit of a ghost problem.”

“Did you do this?” Mitchell demands.

“No Mitch, I think we both know that this was you.”

“I just switched around the recipients a little,” chips in Gabriel.

“How did you all get in here anyway?” Mitch reaches behind him and grabs a large knife off of the table, “get out right now! You’ve seen what I can do! I’ll hurt you without even touching you!”

Dean laughs.

“If you could do any real damage you would have done it to Miles Anderson already.” Sam points out.

“You don’t know that!”

Dean leads the four of them in a few slow steps towards Mitchell. The apparition of Celia fades out. The knife gets lifted higher. The blade is rough and savage, covered in markings.

“The knife holds power, it’s been imbued with malicious spellwork.” Castiel mutters to Dean and Sam.

“A magic blade, huh? Who gave you that, Mitch?” Dean asks.

“Someone more dangerous than me! If you hurt me they’ll come after you and then you’ll be sorry!”

Dean laughs again, this time humourlessly.

“Dude, if we leave you be they’ll come after us. But if we teach you a lesson then you’ll know not to tell tales to your buddy…” Mitchell’s confidence seems to waver “Now see, if it was just me here I’d keep everything neat and just shoot you. But my friends here are a little more compassionate. So what you’re going to do is put that knife down, step away from the altar, and sit down quietly on the floor so we can sort this out, nice and peaceful.”

“Bullshit.”

“Well, of course, you can choose not to believe me and then I can shoot you!”

Dean lifts his gun and points it at Mitchell. Sam follows the bluff, pulls his own pistol out of his waistband and holds it up for good measure. Castiel’s angel blade slides into his hand – apparently from his sleeve, but more likely from a metaphysical plane of existence. Gabriel rummages around in his pockets for a few seconds and pulls out his drink can from earlier. He looks at it with consideration for a moment, and then crushes it easily between his hands. As he draws his hands out again the metal stretches into an archangel’s blade – or facsimile thereof. Regardless, it’s enough to make Mitchell look like he really is about to shit his pants.

“Now, hand over the blade…” Gabe says, stepping forward. Mitchell gives a sigh of frustration and holds it out towards him.

“Cas, get the knife,” Dean interrupts. Cas obediently crosses over to grab it. Mitchell makes a frankly predictable attempt to stab Castiel, who proceeds to pull it out of his chest like it was a mere thorn. Apparently the spells didn’t account for angels of the lord.

Finally realising he has no chance, Mitchell sits down as requested. Dean, Sam and Gabriel surround him while Castiel crouches down in front of him. Dean ties his hands for good measure.

“What-what are you going to do?!” Mitchell asks, panicked.

“I am going to erase part of your memory so that you can no longer perform witchcraft,” Cas tells him.

“Way to keep it blunt, bro,” Gabriel says under his breath

“Impossible!”

“In that case you have nothing to fear, Mitchell,” replies Cas as he presses spread fingertips to the sides of his head.

There’s a second of struggle, and then Mitchell slumps.

“I thought it prudent to knock him out for good measure,” Cas explains.

“Right, well, let’s make it look like he knocked himself out by accident, grab the witchcraft shit and get going before his mom notices something’s up – which, how hasn’t she done already?”

“She fell into a _totally_ naturally caused sleep in front of the TV downstairs” says Gabriel.

“Good thinking.” Sam tells him with a smile.

 

They gather up what they can carry and what could be useful of Mitchell’s supplies and Castiel cleans up the rest. Cas gains exemption from carrying since he needs his hands free to touch-teleport Sam and Dean back to the motel room. Gabriel arrives a moment later.

“Good job gang! How are we gonna celebrate?”

“Well personally I’m a fan of getting the hell out of dodge – literally.” Dean replies.

“No, Dean, we should stay and check Miles and the Davies are okay.”

“Ugh, I knew you’d say that. They can call us, okay? No, Sammy, don’t give me the bitch face, please.”

They compromise by checking in on Miles on their way out of town and hoping that they’ll hear from Maria if something went wrong with Cas’ memory wipe. Miles seems relieved that his nightly haunting didn’t happen, if slightly rueful that it appears to have stopped just as media interest was picking up. They tell him to call if they start up again. They decide to not explain what had actually been going on.

The drive back to Sioux Falls is fuelled by coffee as much as by gas. Gabriel attempts to call shotgun but Sam points out that he doesn’t even need the car to travel, relegating him to the back seat with Castiel. In the rear view mirror Sam watches Gabriel idly toying with his homemade angelic blade. He wonders how close it comes to the real McCoy. Gabe had said before that it couldn’t kill him, but he suspects that a mere human would still find it effective enough. He also sees Castiel watching Gabriel with that look again, the one of concern or maybe consternation that he’s only seen directed at Gabriel.

When they stop to get more coffee and Gabe gets out to find candy, he thinks he sees the same look coming from Dean.

He reasons that it’s probably still odd for them to see the formerly-dead archangel running around with them – to see the trickster who was once their opponent working on their side. It hasn’t really been that long that they’ve all been back together. Not nearly as long as Sam spent with just Gabriel.

 _They just don’t know him as well as I do, yet,_ Sam thinks, and shrugs the matter off.

Still, he persuades Gabriel to come to bed at the same time as him – even though the adrenalin has long worn off and he’s too tired to offer sex just now. Instead they just curl up together, Sam wrapping his arms around Gabe protectively.

Gabriel falls asleep before he does.

 

 

Two days after the hunt Castiel finds a moment to pull Sam aside and talk to him in private. Gabriel is currently indulging Dean’s pie cravings, snapping him up endless slices to eat. Neither pays much attention to the others leaving the room.

“Something’s wrong with Gabriel,” Cas says bluntly, “His grace, it doesn’t look right, doesn’t feel right.”

“He went through a lot before I brought him back, he stamped down on his grace to hide it. It’s probably still damaged,” Sam reasons.

“I don’t think that’s it.”

“When he stuck us in TV land you didn’t recognise him for an archangel – only that he was too powerful for a trickster,” Sam adds defensively.

“No, it’s different to that time. It’s more like an echo…”

“The pagan ritual weakened him when he wasn’t back to full whack anyway, and then he’s been using even more power to help you and Dean recover from purgatory, and _then_ we went on a hunt. Of course his grace is going to be weak,” Sam tells him tersely, stubbornly.

Castiel sighs. “I could be wrong,” he concedes, though his expression remains unconvinced.

“Well then, that’s fine,” Sam walks out. It irks him that after all Gabriel’s been through, done for them, that Cas is calling him into question. Because it must be Gabriel. It has to be. Gabriel is just so – Gabriel – how could he be anything else? When he came back he was just as Sam remembered, pretty much exactly as he imagined he’d be.

A nagging thought starts tugging on that knowledge. Sam pushes it down.

He puts his conversation with Castiel to the back of his mind in favour of seeking out Gabriel and pushing him to their bed and losing himself in the reality of Gabriel’s earthy scent and solid body. They have to be quiet now Dean and Cas are here: moans bitten back or swallowed up, cries stifled down to whimpers against heated skin.

It scratches at the back of his mind as he lies there afterwards, half asleep and curled around Gabriel. Like Cas’ doubt is trying its very best to be infectious. He silently berates himself for it – for being ungrateful. He has no right to doubt Gabriel, the archangel and trickster that he put so much faith in from the start; the one who gradually let him in and gave him the right to put that faith there.

And that’s where the problem lies.

How much of Gabriel is actual Gabriel, and how much is the product of Sam’s faith and the tulpa sigil?

Is any part of Gabriel the actual Gabriel?

It occurs to Sam that while he shouldn’t be thinking these things at all, he certainly shouldn’t be thinking them with the potentially mind-reading angel in question right next to him. He checks, but Gabriel seems not to have heard due to being asleep – which is odd, before Norway he hadn’t had to sleep for ages – since he’d recovered – and he’s slept so much since then that surely he should have recharged by now. That is, of course, unless something else is draining his strength.

Sam tightens his arms where they were loosely wrapped around Gabriel, hugging him tight. He presses his face in the crook of Gabriel’s neck and murmurs, “You’re mine. You’re real and you’re mine” against his skin. Gabriel stirs a little but doesn’t wake, just settles himself more comfortably into Sam’s arms.

In the morning Gabriel is still asleep but it’s restless and fitful. They rolled apart in the night and when Sam touches Gabriel the skin is colder than it should be. He starts to worry. He pulls down the bed sheet and Gabriel curls up into an ever tighter ball but Sam can see where the scars across his skin have inflamed, raised up an angry red once more. Sam gets closer, tried to reach over to see Gabriel’s back. The movement wakes the angel up with a gasp and the light dims as two shadows erupt from his shoulder blades.

“S-Sam.”

“Shh, Gabriel.” Sam tries to soothe him. “I’m going to go and get the medicine out of the car. It looks like you’ve relapsed. Stay here.” Gabriel nods dumbly.

He hurries out to the parking lot, panic overriding the train of thought from before he fell asleep until it’s just a tiny leak dripping doubt through at the back of his mind. _Since when did archangels get sick anyway – you thought of the explanation all yourself – you should ask Castiel._

Castiel appears as he’s lifting the right bag out of the pickup.

“Sam.”

“Cas, I’m in a rush right now.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Yeah, Gabriel. He—” Sam sighs. “you could come take a look at him?”

Castiel follows him back to his motel room and looks over Gabriel as Sam unpacks.

“The Enochian is broken but does speak of binding and concealment,” he reports. “I’m not familiar enough with Old Norse to interpret the runes. However I have never seen anything like Gabriel’s condition occur before in an angel - especially the scratching.”

Sam looks over and sure enough Gabriel’s skin is scraped and bleeding.

“Shit, hold on.” Sam grabs the pestle and mortar and crushes the herbs hastily. There isn’t much left, he hadn’t bothered to restocking –

“What is that?” asks Castiel.

“Angelica, mostly, then some other Viking healing herbs.”

Cas looks thoughtful. “I remember angelica being named after we told the humans of its healing properties, but I never heard of it being used on an actual angel.”

“Well it works, okay?” Sam says shortly.

“You mean it works on this Gabriel.”

“Well, I haven’t had to try it on anyone else.” Sam puts the bowl down to he can manoeuvre Gabriel onto his front. He’s scratching, whimpering, but not trying to speak. He sits across the small of Gabriel’s back, the movement still natural though they’d stopped doing this days ago, and starts applying the mixture.

“Sam, what I said yesterday,” Castiel hesitates, “still stands.”

“That he’s not an angel? That his ‘grace doesn’t feel right’? He was a pagan god, Cas, and then he was in purgatory! Of course it won’t feel right.” Sam can feel the pressure building up behind his eyes, tears threatening to form in fear and desperation. “But – he’s done things I didn’t make him do, Cas, he can act of his own accord!”

“How exactly did you bring him back, then?”

Sam tells Castiel about the symbols and the rituals and Elysian Fields.

Castiel listens pensively. “You went to the exact place where Gabriel died?”

“Yeah, right down to the wings burnt into the floor.”

“And you resurrected him from that point?”

“Uh-huh.”

“It’s possible that an impression of the real Gabriel was picked up from those remains. Combined with the power of all that faith and sustained by your continued belief, it’s possible…”

“How could my faith alone be enough?”

“There may be some coming from the religious believers too, but you should not count the power of your own faith and will so lightly, Sam. You are no ordinary human, remember.”

“That’s no consolation, Cas, you’re still telling me he isn’t real. And look at what that’s doing to him! I need to help him – I have to – I can’t…”

“I don’t believe that it’s Gabriel, Sam.”

“Get out, then!” Sam shouts. “And tell Dean to stay out too, if he thinks the same as you.”

He looks at Cas and thinks he sees pity before he vanishes.

Sam turns his focus back to Gabriel. He has been spreading the angelica thin to make it last and the cracking scars seem endless. When he runs out, he gets off Gabriel, presses a kiss to his hair and then goes back to the bag to grab the can of spray paint. He sprays the tulpa sigil into the carpet – motel property be damned – and sits down to meditate as it’s always helped Gabriel in the past. He tries to pull his thoughts together, tries to focus on Gabriel, how he’s real and will heal and that he loves him and is loved by him but—

\- he can’t.

The doubt is too much. It’s set in and is tearing his belief to shreds like Gabriel’s poor scratched skin. He can’t believe that this is really Gabriel anymore, can’t put that belief into the sigil because what if that’s what it was the whole time? A sigil and his stupid fucking faith.

Maybe if getting Dean and Cas back was the only thing that mattered this wouldn’t hurt so much, but no, he had to fucking go and fall in love with Gabriel and now –

Shit. Gabriel’s feelings for him, what if he had believed them into existence too? What if he was so fucking desperate and lonely that he willed a facsimile of an archangel into existence and fell in love with him and it wasn’t even real and –

Gabriel gives a long, wet, hacking cough that sounds real enough to drag Sam back to the bed, to Gabriel. He’s pale now, under the vivid lines of scars and scratches; he looks tiny and fragile. Sam gets on the bed gently, settles himself against the headboard and pulls Gabriel into his lap. He cradles the angel – or maybe it’s just another tulpa – in his arms. He’s lighter than usual, and his skin has an odd sort of translucency. Sam rubs a hand over Gabriel’s shoulder blades and the wing-shadows flutter weakly in response  but Sam can see them slowly disintegrating.

He knows what it is: Gabriel’s fading as fast as Sam’s belief is.

He clutches Gabriel to him, light as if he’s as hollow inside as Sam feels.

“Don’t go. I need you,” he whispers. Gabriel looks up.

“I am what you make of me, Sam,” he murmurs.

The tears Sam’s been holding spill over.

“…and at least you made me great in the sack.”

Sam laughs, but it’s choked off by his sobs. Still joking in such a fucking serious situation - exactly as he’d imagined Gabriel would be. Exactly the Gabriel he grew to love.

“I love you, Gabriel, I – do you love me? Or was that just my belief?”

Gabriel doesn’t say anything, just lifts his head and presser their lips together.

Gabriel’s trembling and Sam’s shaking with sobs but he holds the kiss, mouths _I love you_ and _don’t go_ against Gabriel’s soft smile.

Gabriel’s light as a feather in his arms now and Sam doesn’t want to open his eyes, see if he’s transparent now. His arms are holding Gabriel’s shape but the cool press on is mouth is the only way he knows he’s still there.

And then he isn’t.

Sam still refuses to open his eyes and see. He rolls down, curls up into a ball on the covers. He’d hoped they’d still smell of Gabriel but even that’s gone. He’s too wrung out for more crying. He just lies there, pictures memories of Gabriel, his Gabriel and the – _fuck_ – the real one, until he falls asleep. Or maybe he just gives up on being conscious.

 

 

 

~

It seems unfair to Sam that as soon as he manages to refill one gaping hole in his heart a new one gets torn open, but then they’ve been dealt so much shit in their lives that it would almost feel weird to not have a constant ache gnawing at him. Maybe one day he’ll move on, like he eventually got over Jess to the point where he could remember her with just a fond sort of melancholy. It doesn’t feel like he will get there any time soon, but maybe one day.

When Jess died Sam sought closure in hunting down her killer, and it had helped, in a bittersweet sort of way. Unfortunately the only perpetrator of this mess he is in now is his own foolishness. He thinks he needs closure if he wants to get through this, but he doesn’t know where to start. Instead of moving on he falls into loop, cycling between wishing he’d never had the tulpa idea, that none of this had happened, and wanting to cling on tightly to every memory of Gabriel he has.

Nine days after Gabriel faded he climbs into the pickup truck and starts driving. He drives through the night, stopping only when necessary for food and coffee at all-night gas stations. Thirteen hours later he passes through Muncie, Indiana, where he stops at a hardware store. Not long after that he reaches Elysian Fields.

The hotel looks much the same as it did two months ago. The wreckage is perhaps a little dustier; the ceiling of the mostly-intact ballroom sags a few millimetres closer to the top of Sam’s head. The paint from the ritual hasn’t faded, declaring Sam’s idiocy in bold black symbols all across the walls.  Now the tulpa sigils and the Norse and Enochian that spell out Gabriel’s names over and over and over just mock him.

_Sam Winchester_ , they croon, _so desperate that he created a corporeal imaginary friend out of a dead archangel_

_Sam Winchester: fell in love with a figment of his imagination_

_Sam Winchester: dumb enough to believe it was the real Gabriel_

_Sam Winchester: who still couldn’t believe enough to save him_

 

The grief and guilt and shame bubble up and burn, become anger, make Sam dump the bag he’d been carrying so he can pull his arm back and drive his fist forward into the nearest wall. It hits the middle of a line of enochian, knuckles denting the old plaster and cracking the paint. Pain shoots up his arm and angry tears prick his eyes. Sam ignores both and punches the wall again. And again. He keeps pounding at the symbols, watching flakes of his stupidity rain down from the wall with grim satisfaction.

He forces himself to stop when his knuckles are bleeding too much, the force of his hits too weak to have an impact other than smearing blood on the wall. The pain is cathartic, but all he’s managed to do is chip a few feet of symbols. The rest of them are still tauntingly clear on the walls.

He goes back to the duffel bag and yanks it open, pulls out the brushes and cans of paint he’d brought to do this job properly. With shaking hands he prises off the lids. He grabs the first can in both hands, and he thinks he should pick a brush but his body is two steps ahead. On impulse he stands up and twists, swinging the can by the base. Black paint splashes across the wall, oozing thick like ichor as it starts to run down, obliterating the symbols in its path.

He tries to blink the tears out of his eyes but they defy him and slide free. He turns and swings again, splattering the next patch of wall. Then the next. The coverage is messy and ragged and violent but it feels cleansing, somehow. Wiping out the evidence of what he did.

When the cans are too empty to splash well he grabs a brush and dips it in the remains, attacking any symbol that managed to escape the carnage. The walls have become a mess of black over their original red. The floor doesn’t escape either, paint poured onto the carpet, smothering that last tulpa sigil that Sam had sat behind as he focused his belief.

Sam’s calmer now. His anger has been poured out with the paint. The tears that ran down his cheeks are starting to dry up. He’s almost done here – there’s just one thing left.

He takes the jug of holy oil out of the bag. He pulls out the stopper and carefully tips it, dribbling oil onto the foot of the space where Gabriel’s body had once lain. He works his way up methodically, spreading holy oil over the carpet, coating the faded imprint of the burnt wings. There is just enough left to reach the tips.

Finally, he lights a match and drops it.

The flames shoot up immediately. The holy oil barely singes the carpet, but the fire glows blue-white as it consumes the last remains of grace.

When they turn orange again Sam packs his things and leaves.

 

He throws the duffel bag into the back of the truck and rummages around for something to clean the worst of the paint from his hands. As he scrubs at blackened fingers with a rag soaked in rubbing alcohol he hears a creak behind him. He turns.

With a muffled scrape and shuffle, the roof of the ballroom finally caves in. It’s not loud, not really, more of a dying whimper of a building that can finally decay. Sam wonders how much of it had been physical construction and how much had relied on the power of gods and archangels to stand.

A small part of him wishes he’d stayed in the ballroom and collapsed with it. He pushes it aside, though: giving up like that has never been the Winchester way. Instead he climbs into the car and starts the drive back to Sioux Falls.

The destruction of the ballroom is the closest he can get to closure for what happened with Gabriel. He thinks it did help, a little. The loss still gnaws at him like an ache, though, and he still feels fiercely lonely without Gabriel’s presence. 

He tries to focus on the positives: he has his brother back, and he has Castiel back. He has the last of his family; he has monsters and demons to kill; he has Jody and Kevin and Garth and somewhere on the internet Charlie and Frank are watching his back. He is not alone, and he can carry on.

He just has to remember to keep moving without an angel on his shoulder.


	5. Bonus Features

**ART:**

Art was done by the wonderful [mangacrack](http://mangacrack.livejournal.com/), and the original artposts can be found on  **[livejournal](http://mangacrack.livejournal.com/106908.html)**  and **[AO3](../../../1056752)**.

 

**MUSIC:**

There isn't a set playlist for this fic, however I highly reccommend listening to the [Violeta Violeta trilogy by Kaizer's Orchestra](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3jCXono0ZA).

I listened to it a lot while writing, they're Norwegian (which totally links to Loki and so Gabriel), and it's also fantastic. Also the whole album trilogy is over 2 hours long, so it should keep you going for most if not all of the fic.

 

**ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:**

Martha ([jiminynovak](http://jiminynovak.tumblr.com/)/[komodobits](http://komodobits.livejournal.com/)), my sounding board and beta, who has had to put up with me going on about this fic for over a year now.

Flo ([chaoticallyprecise](http://chaoticallyprecise.tumblr.com/)), my beta and emotional guinea pig (since Martha knew what was going to happen).

[Mangacrack](http://mangacrack.livejournal.com/), my aforementioned artist

[The Sabriel Minibang](http://sabriel-mini.livejournal.com), of which this is a part of.

You! Thank you for reading!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Archangelica](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1056752) by [mangacrack](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mangacrack/pseuds/mangacrack), [nommunication](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nommunication/pseuds/nommunication)




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